


How I Spent My Summer Vacation

by LoxieBoxie, TGP



Series: Happy Endings [12]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alpha verse feels, Alternate Alpha Timeline, Angst, Culture Shock, Early 1900s slang, Family Feels, Getting to know you, Its not me its you, M/M, Mentions of alcoholism, Mild freakouts, Pesterlog, Post SBURB, Reunion, Social Awkwardness, Sylladexes are hard, Time Shenanigans, Unspecified Mental Illness, preslash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-17 17:57:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 51,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoxieBoxie/pseuds/LoxieBoxie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TGP/pseuds/TGP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe Egbert wakes up having been dragged into more shenanigans. Dave Strider just wakes up, period. </p><p>And then there are kids. Somehow, they'll figure it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline wise, this starts in April, before the kids end up entering the new world. Stories wise, this would be around the last third of Time Travel is Useful.

He wakes up on the balcony of the Houston apartment, but he almost doesn’t recognize it at first because the first thing he sees is a satellite dish on the roof of the building next door.  For a long, long moment all he does is stare at it, uncomprehending, because a part of him isn’t sure what should be wrong and another part knows that something is definitely not right, here.  He considers, for a moment, let’s his head roll back easily from his shoulders, and he stares up at the sky as he pursues the answers in his own mind.

 

He slowly manages to remember that the apartment is supposed to be at a much higher altitude than this and he’s going to sue whoever it is that made it shorter without his permission.  Except maybe it’s not shorter at all, and everything else just got taller?  This is probably an integral thing to know if he’s going to go through the trouble of making a lawsuit, so he stands from the shitty garden chair he’s woken up on, hates the fact that he’s old enough for his back to creak, and peers over the railing to check out how far away the ground is.  Luckily for his sense of vertigo, it’s not bad.  The apartment’s pretty far off the ground, sure, but he doesn’t have to play ball with The Jetson’s lifestyle just yet, it seems.

 

Things are starting to come back to him, anyway.

 

There’s no one else around, so he assumes he’s perfectly within his rights to slump against the railing, more than just a little overcome with exhaustion.  He’s done nothing but fight and hide and fight and time travel, for the past handful of years, and he deserves a little bit of a break.  He doubts he’s going to get one, considering that he still has no idea where he is, really, but it’s not like anyone’s going to complain about him taking a five-minute breather to his face.

 

The last thing he remembers is him and Rose getting their ass handed to them on a gilded platter by Baroness Batterbitch, which isn’t, as it turns out, a very pleasant memory at all.  For an alien hag who seemed to think it was strategically sound to hire a douchebag chef and a couple of clown jokers to be her highest serving minions, she’d been vicious and unforgiving in battle; neither he or Rose had gone down easily or quickly, as far as he remembers, but the odds had been stacked against them from the start.

 

He’s never going to eat another cake again without thinking of her, though, and that’s what really pisses him off.

 

There’s still blood on his shirt from that battle, and he notices it when he stands up straight again; he cautiously gropes the area where the red is solid from pooled blood, but the skin underneath is unbroken and not even sore, so whatever’s happened, he’s apparently been healed - he’s okay with that, really, even if it just adds to the surreal quality of the situation. After he finishes checking himself over (and he really is healed, he doesn’t even have any bruises or minor scratches - he feels as good as new, almost _literally_ ), he peers back over the cityscape.

 

It’s...as calm as any old day in Houston, really.  There’s the sound of far-off sirens but that hadn’t been unusual even in the pre-hell-on-Earth days.  The sky is clear, the only panic in the streets looks like rush hour panic.  No one seems to be cowering in fear of their lives, so he assumes that the human race isn’t currently being oppressed by any alien aggressors. He’s a little surprised when his phone still works, but he shakes it off and checks the news apps, and all of it’s just people bitching about the GOP and what scandalous thing which celebrity did this week.

 

Did they win?  Dave struggles to call anything that actively destroys worlds and rips universes apart something as simple as a game, but from what little Rose was able to describe of it, that’s really what it was and how all these fucked up kids got tricked into participating in it.  Nothing seems wrong or apocalyptic, though, so he assumes something must have gone right.  More right than he’d originally assume it would, even, considering he’s no longer dead by an extremely foolish attempt to take down Sea Hitler.  But this is more than just being alive - the whole world seems different, even just from the balcony there are things that are altered from what he remembers.

 

There’s a prickling at his skin, too, and it’s as he’s surveying the buildings around him that he begins to realize that the familiar beat of time in the back of his head is so very faint, now, that he can barely hear it.  He runs a hand through his hair as he stands there, and he tries to concentrate on the familiar tug and pull of it, but - yeah, no, he doesn’t appear to be able to do much with it at all, anymore.  He can still sense it, though barely, and there’s something about it that’s choppy and patchwork and harder to concentrate on then all the rest - so he stops concentrating on it.  He’s got enough of a headache going on without trying to figure out something that he’s never actually completely understood in the first place.

 

For a moment, the mere scale of the amount of information he doesn’t have seems very overwhelming, but he pulls himself together because he’s Dave Strider and he hasn’t hidden under the blanket of willful ignorance for a long, long time.

 

The first thing he does when he pulls himself together is send a text to Rose, because the best case scenario is that she’s in the same situation he is, or else she’s dead, and Dave’s not good at dealing with death and he’s not going to start being good with it anytime soon.  His fellow terrorist/freedom-fighter had better be alive, or else he’s going to have Words with her, ominous capitalization and all.  When he’s sufficiently satisfied with the level of carefully planned irreverence in his message, he sends it and he stares at it until he has to blink.  He’ll give her a day to respond before he lets himself worry about it too hard, but he can’t imagine a reason why he might be alive and she might not.

 

The next step in his self-appointed reconnaissance mission is a lot more vague, because he’s beginning to get the sense of Grand Cosmic Events and if he were to put himself on a scale of how important he is next to them, something tells him that the meter would read a shameful, ‘Absolutely Fuck All’.  So, yeah, he’s got no plan because everything around him is insisting on being ambiguous, his usual font of information is currently MIA, and he’s still got no idea how the Houston apartment got so much shorter.

 

The best place to gather information is from the inside, though, and Dave taps his phone against the railing for a moment before he turns, decisively, on his heel and advances inwards into the heart of the mystery.  The apartment is kind of a wreck - the first room in off the balcony is the kitchen, and he’s not sure anything in it actually looks like a kitchen should except for the stack of empty pizza and take-out boxes on the counter next to the trash.  There’s fireworks in the sink and a pile of... _interesting_ little colored stuffed animal doll things on the floor that look like something he might buy off the internet if he were poor and desperate, and something red and green in the blender that he’s pretty certain isn’t edible or even an attempt at food.  He opens the fridge out of pure curiosity and almost gets impaled by swords again, but he spies actual food behind the glint of steel, too.  It’s not how he would decorate now, but it seems like exactly the sort of place he’d have if he’d had time to actually be home, between Hollywood and Rebellion.

 

Alas, though, the kitchen can only hold his attention for so long before he remembers what he’s trying to accomplish, here.  He wipes his hands on his pants and steps out into the living room; there’s honest to god cinderblock furniture in here, and he knows for sure that this is definitely _the_ apartment, but it’s also _not_ \- because he draws the line at cinderblock furniture.  He might allow it in his own home, but he’s guilty and angry enough about Dirk that he knows for a fact that he ordered top of the line furniture for the kid - it probably wouldn’t have been top of the line by the time the kid was there to _enjoy_ it, but it’d at least be well built enough not to crumble into dust and gravel before that.

 

He manages not to turn his nose up at it in a grimace, but only barely, and he’s about to turn around to investigate the rest of this shitty Houston apartment when he notices that the second-rate futon appears to actually be _occupied_.  The first thing he sees is blonde hair, following by the same stain of red that had been on his own clothes, but before he can even start to get his hopes up that he and Rose ended up in the same place, he realizes that it’s a man.

 

A man who’s...oddly familiar, though Dave knows for a fact he’s never seen him in his life.

 

He’s probably about Dave’s age, maybe a little younger or maybe a little older (who can really tell and who really cares, no Strider really looks much like the age they’re supposed to anyway), but the way he stretches out on the couch makes him look like he’s definitely taller.  He’s wearing a baseball cap and a pair of shades that Dave’s pretty sure he must use as a deadly weapon, and there’s definitely blood on his shirt in a pattern that’s disturbingly similar to the pattern of blood on his own.  Dave would worry about stains on the upholstery, but the futon continues to be shitty no matter how long he looks at it, so he doesn’t actually give a shit.

 

He’s also breathing still, which tells Dave that he’s not the only person to be inexplicably without injury and gives him more hope for Rose.

 

What he wants is to be able to assume that this new douchebag is Dirk, but something about the label feels wrong even as part of it feels right; he tries to apply logic to this incredibly illogical situation, though, and this man’s not the right age to be his kid-brother and not even really in the right time period.  Whoever he is, though, Dave decides that he’s definitely, somehow, a Strider who’s been far too involved with events that he doesn’t really understand.

 

Somehow he’s still sleeping, despite the fact that Dave hasn’t exactly thought to be quiet while he’s exploring this apartment that’s both his and very much _not_ his.  He considers waking him up for all of two seconds before he finally shakes his head and disengages from his staring.  There’s more left to explore in this apartment, and Dave needs a little more time to himself to adjust.  There’s really not a lot else to look at, though - he spends some time dicking around in a room he probably would have approved of as a pre-teen, going through records and photographs and a choice collection of dead things.  He stops because it starts feeling skeezy and awkward, though, because apparently this room _did_ belong to a teenaged version of him.  The shitty pictures say enough, really, and the shittier drawings - there’s even some SB &HJ comics on the computer.

 

He’s starting to get that this isn’t really his world, though, even if it leaves him more confused as to what he’s doing here.  This is a world where he grew up in - well, not a _normal_ home, but with actual family...and actually, if he was still just a kid here, then the man in the living room?  He might actually _be_ Dirk, because Dave doesn’t really get alternate realities, but that seems like the sort of backwards bullshit that would happen in one.  Dirk raised _him_ here, and the man in the living room _is_ Dirk (or at least a version of him), and Dave’s got twenty different varieties of migraines going on right now.

 

All in all, his first waking hours after his presumed death are incredibly surreal, and he finally gives in because he’s sick of being in the dark about it all - and either alter-Dirk is going to have some modicum of a clue, or else they’re both going to be confused, but either is good enough for him.  He grabs one of the plush abominations from the nearest surface and launches it directly at the man on the couch - and he’s not at all vindictively amused when it hits target, of course, because that’s childish and not at all cool.

 

In any case, it does it’s job - the man sits up and looks like he reaches for a sword that’s not there, but he pauses as he sees Dave and his entire body twitches.  His mouth twists into a frown, and Dave is definitely not the only person who’s So-Done-With-This.  In fact, Dave thinks he’s probably doing a better job of keeping a straight face, because after a moment of mutual Strider-watching, alter-Dirk sighs and knocks his cap off, and then pulls his sunglasses away so that he can drop them and massage his temples.

 

“You’re not Dave,” Dave is accused, and he crosses his arms and can’t decide if he’s actually offended or not.

 

“Look, I know _you_ must be used to shopping for hand-me-down Daves at the salvation army, but I’ve got a certificate of authentication in my pants, so I’m not exactly looking for your approval, here.”

 

“Oh, is that what they’re calling micro-dick these days?”

 

“I don’t know, man, you’re the one with the fetish and the problem, you tell me what the slang is.”

 

There’s a pause, then, before they’re both smirking at one another and a silent mutual agreement that they both forgive the other for not being the right Strider.  He deigns to sit on what is literally the shittiest futon he’s ever been subjected to (he will probably never stop bitching about it), and the two of them stare at the blank television screen in silence for a long, long moment before alter-Dirk sighs, again.

 

“I guess they managed to start the Scratch, then?”

 

“I literally have not even the slightest fucking clue what that’s supposed to mean.”

 

“You’re from the new universe the scratch created, right?” Dirk stares at Dave who stares at him so blankly that he has to look over the top of his glasses to really convey his lack of comprehension.  “Didn’t you play the game?”

 

He fucking knew it.  He almost wishes he’d paid more attention to Rose’s explanation of it, except that he’d been dealing with enough, at the time.

 

“You mean...Sburb, right?  The alpha version of Sburb, or some shit.  Nah, I mean, that wasn’t my part.  Lalonde mentioned something about a couple of do-gooder kids who started playing the day the Batterbitch invaded, and later on our genetic progeny was supposed to join them, but that’s literally all I know about it.”

 

“The Batterbitch?”  The silence permeates again as they both consider the situation, before alter-Dirk swears under his breath and stands up.  “You shower first, I’ll get the coffee started, and we’ll deal with everything else afterwards?”

 

“Sweet, I’ll enjoy the break from looking at your face.”

 

When he finds that one of the closets actually has his entire wardrobe from L.A. in it he decides that he can’t even begin to quantify how done he is with this day.

 

They manage to hash it all out, though, or at least piece it together enough from what each of them know to have some faint grasp on the situation.  Whatever’s happened, the fact that they’re here at all must means that the kids either won, or that they’re win _ning_.  Either’s a good sign, and it goes unspoken that the both of them are anxious for their respective brothers to show up.

 

Even if there might end up being more than two Daves, though alter-Dirk says that he’s not sure how the game works or how fair it’s going to be.  Dave just sort of accepts this as another oddity of his life.  They manage to normalize life between them in a minimum amount of days, though, and Dave starts the job hunt because apparently his fame hasn’t carried over to this universe (he thinks he’s okay with that, though, because there’s a chance he’ll get to meet Dirk and he wants to have the time to get to know him).

 

A week after they wake up, they both get a call at the same time - Dave’s heart leaps to his throat because the only person who has his number in this place _has_ to be Rose, and Dirk’s frowning at his own phone with a mix of recognition, hope, and confusion.  They each break for different parts of the house; Dave for the balcony, and Dirk leaves entirely, probably headed up to the roof.  Dave’s managed to realize in the past week that it’s the other blond’s favorite place to retreat to.

 

“Hello?” He answers, and he has no idea how he’s managed to keep his voice so even, but he practically collapses in the balcony chair when the familiar chuckle of a certain woman meets his ears.

 

“Dave.  I apologize for taking so long to reach you, but it seems that my phone wasn’t as lucky to survive the confrontation as I was, and it’s taken a ludicrous amount of time to have it fixed.”

 

“No, it’s...it’s cool. It’s not like I was worried about your sarcastic ass, anyway, Lalonde, I have no doubt you’d be able to psychoanalyze your way out of the clutches of the grim reaper if you wanted to.”

 

“Hahaha, I imagine so.  How are you?”

 

“Honestly? Confused.  Alive, but mostly confused.  Dirk and I think we know what’s going on, but a lot of it’s just conjecture.”  There’s a pause, and Dave assumes she’s processing this information, and then he wonders if she’s met Roxy’s alternate self.

 

“Before I answer, let me ask you: can you still take your little day-trips to the past?” There’s no accusation in her voice, just a general desire to know; and he feels okay with telling the truth, because she doesn’t make it sound like it’s a skill she _needs_ him to have, right now.

 

“No.  It’s...really slippery, right now.  I can still sense it, though.  Whatever brought us here, though, left a lot of...of gaps, I guess, it’s hard to explain.  But they’re pulling together.  Really, really slowly, but they are.”  There’s a sound from over the phone, like she’s deflated but in a good way, and when she speaks again there’s a note of tension gone from her voice that he’s never even noticed before.

 

“We’re going to have visitors soon.  As far as I can tell, they’ve won, but...well, you know better than anyone how nonlinear time can be.  I think yours will arrive before anyone else’s though - and you might want to see about expanding, seeing as how you’ll have quite the little brood by the time it’s all over.”  Dave frowns, a little, staring out across the city as the sun catches on the buildings, his feet propped up on the railing.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Of course, all she does is chuckle again and change the subject, because that’s all she _ever_ does.  He doesn’t even know why he wanted her to be safe, anymore.

 

“You’ll see.  In any case, I have to be off, now - dearest Ms. Lalonde and I are about to go shopping, and we have the most interesting conversations on the subject of wizards.  One last bit of advice, though? Don’t put it off any longer than necessary.”  She’s hanging up the phone before he can ask her what the hell she’s even talking about, and she’s just as infuriating as ever.

 

He contemplates throwing his phone off the balcony out of spite, but there’s a knock on the door before he can, and he turns his head to see Dirk holding his phone out to him.  Dave’s brows furrow, but Dirk just shrugs - and what the hell, why the fuck not.  Dave takes the phone from him and puts it to his ear.

 

“Sup?”

 

“I hope you’re having a good afternoon, David?” What the shit? Dave furrows his brows, because the voice sounds too familiar, but at the same time, he’s not sure he can place it.  “I was quite relieved to finally be able to get through to you two; everyone else has been here for a handful of months, now.”

 

“...Thanks? And it’s just Dave.” Who is he talking to? He glances at Dirk again, but the jackass is just leaning against the door and watching him, offering no help whatsoever.  Whoever it is, though, at least they sound nice?

 

“I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but I don’t think you were ever able to get Joe’s information before you left again, and I think he’d quite enjoy hearing from you now that you’re more likely to stay in one place.”

 

Of all the things he’s expecting, to hear about _Joe_ again is...well, it hasn’t really crossed his mind before now and he immediately feels bad about it.  Joe and Jade had been some of the easier, better constants in the last few years of his life, and he really is attached to them - but things have been messed up, and the idea that they might make it into this new world...it hadn’t really seemed plausible.

 

He’s also pretty sure that he’s talking to one Mr. Egbert, now, too, and though he never spoke directly to the man, he seems a lot more...present, than he had in Dave’s world’s past.  Hopefully he likes this one better than that one.  He considers that for a moment, but you know - out of everything fucked up going on right now, Mr. Egbert could literally be on the bottom of his list of concerns, so he relaxes back into his chair and props his feet up on the railing with a long, low sigh.

 

“You think so?  I dunno, I bet the two of them have moved on by now - they probably barely even remember me.”  There’s a pause over the phone, then, as if Egbert’s trying to parse out what he’s saying, and he can’t help but wonder how much the dude knows about all of this - he hadn’t had a lot to do with the man from his own world, after all, but he realizes, suddenly, that this man sounds a lot more in the know than he would have expected.  He’s about to ask when there’s a chuckle.

  
“I doubt that either of them would forget you so soon.”  He ends up talking with Egbert for longer than he’d expected to, and he finds it kind of weird how they’ve created this support group of ‘parents of children who are off stopping the destruction of reality’ but it’s good.  The phone call ends with him getting Joe’s number and probably the most encouraging words he’s ever heard an adult man tell him, before.  At some point, Dirk must have retreated inside, and Dave considers, maybe, trying to call Joe now, but...it’s getting late and he’s interrupted those kids lives enough as it is - he’ll call tomorrow, or the day after, but for now, he goes back inside and tosses the phone at Dirk’s head.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to keep in mind, this Dave and Joe chapter runs vaguely concurrently for the most part. Just needed to set up what each of them were doing.

For the last few weeks, Joe’s felt like something was itching under his skin. He doesn’t know what it’s about or how to stop it and he’s only mildly comforted that Jade feels the same. It’s not a bad feeling, exactly, but a sense that something is different. He can’t quantify it. He can’t even really explain it, but the change is there, real, and he’s waiting to stumble over it with something that isn’t quite fear.

 

Joe ignores it as long as he can. He works, sings, and generally lives his life because there’s no actual difference he can find. The days go on and the feeling remains right between his shoulders, like it’s looking at him and waiting for him to notice it. Like it’s some living thing that’s stalking him and no matter how far he runs, it’s going to be one step behind him.

 

It’s unnerving but there’s no constructive way to deal with it so he doesn’t. Joe checks through his bag, making sure he’s got the sheet music he doesn’t really need but always takes because it never hurts to be prepared. He pauses to make sure his hair is only a little messy (there’s no taming it) and then he’s out the door.

 

Joe and Jade don’t own a car. The public transport is good enough in the city, but more over their workplaces are well within walking distance so they’ve never seen the point in putting money into a vehicle of their own. When they need to get somewhere, they find ways. Part of it is the money waste. The bigger chunk has to do with the way they were raised and the clear memories of traveling with only one case each, side by side against the world.

 

The club is easy to find after the near three years he’s been working there, though it’d be easy enough as it is. _The Wastes_ is anything but subtle and bright lights outside beckon in the weary and cheery alike. Inside is a little warm, a little dark, and a strange kind of cozy. Joe gives a nod to the short bartender and goes to stow his bag. The sheet music follows him out to the stage. _Wastes_ doesn’t boast much but the baby grand Joe gets to play purrs soft and sweet under his fingers. He gently wipes down the keys with a cloth and settles in to warm up.

 

Even if the itch between his shoulders is permanent, Joe can let it go when he’s playing. He lets the music flow through him, feels it more than he hears it, and when he lifts his voice to meet, it is a clear outcry of joy. Joe never feels as free as he does when he’s singing.

 

“Yo, Egbert!”

 

Joe pauses and looks over his shoulder as the club owner came his way. Amos Read is a stout man with flaming red hair he seems to forget about most of the time, considering the way it sticks up at every direction like a bird nest, worse than Joe’s does naturally. Even though he’s never seen dark roots, Joe’s pretty sure the color is fake because he’s never seen a tanned redhead, even if there are a startling amount of freckles along his nose. He doesn’t call him out, though. Amos has been good to him.

 

“Need something?”

 

Amos grins and scratches his nose a bit. “The missus told me to ask if you wanted any venison steaks. Seems to think we’ve got too many of them.”

 

“You do go overboard a lot,” Joe muses, shrugging a shoulder. “Sure, I won’t turn them down. Jade’ll be happy.”

 

“Damn, I was hoping you’d get a polite stick up your ass about it but fine, fine, eat me out of house and home.”

 

“If that dog of yours hasn’t, no one will.”

 

Amos slaps his back a little hard, snickering as he heads off to continue the pre opening duties. His “missus” is actually his mother, a tiny woman who spends more time trying to get rid of Amos’ hunting spoils than actually cooking them. She’s a meek thing, always nervous, but they don’t worry about her on account of the dog. Amos’s beast is big, black, and vicious with just about anyone other than his mother. His face is scarred, he lost a leg to a bear (so says Amos,) and he has the most unholy howl. Joe freely admits that the dog terrifies him but Amos just gets big and proud when people are run off by his monster mutt. The weirdest thing is that the dog likes Jade but Jade has an odd kind of magnetism anyway.

 

The bartender breaks his first glass as soon as Joe finishes his second set but for Waylon Vasquez, that’s a miracle. The guy is nervy as all get out and mutters apologies under his breath as often as he breathes. Joe doesn’t mind helping him clean up and charming the patrols to keep them from complaining. It’s the least he can do since Waylon is actually one of the best guys he knows.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” Waylon mutters as he drops the last bit of glass into the wastebasket. “On your break, too.”

 

“It’s fine.” Joe gives him a smile as Waylon ducks his head. “Someone spook you?”

 

It happens often enough but Waylon shakes his head without looking Joe in the eye. Not a spook to chase off, hm? Joe glances over the club and finds his answer in a private booth with a wineglass in hand. No one throws Waylon off the way Wendy Queshire does. He’s been in love with the woman for years now, completely head over heels (completely out of his league), and Joe thinks it’s adorable. Wendy is a woman that seems as outside of time as Joe is. They know little of her past or why she’s so taken with a small lounge like this one, but Wendy’s been coming to _Wastes_ far longer than Joe’s been working there. She’s intimidating, not only for her regal stature but also because Joe knows well the glorious sound she can draw from a bass. Such sound he could only dream about.

 

The night goes on, typical for them. By the time two A.M. rolls around, Joe’s tired but satisfied. He waves a farewell to Amos and claps Waylon’s shoulder on his way out. Even late, the air is fairly warm and Joe hurries along to the apartment. He’s ready to fall into the oblivion of sleep-

 

The feeling of _change_ , the itch between his shoulders, suddenly flashes hot and huge and heavy over him. Joe stumbles, hands fumbling against the front door of his apartment building. His heart thuds in his chest as a strange settling flows over him, like a piece fit into place in a massive puzzle he could not hope to fathom. It leaves him feeling small and shaky. Thankfully, when he gets up to the apartment, Jade’s asleep. He doesn’t really want her to see him so off balance.

 

After that, there’s no ignoring the itch. Joe starts feeling hemmed in and paranoid. He can’t relax, can’t really focus, and it gets bad enough that Amos tells him to take a few days off. Joe manages to spend half an hour watching television before he has to get up and move and then he can’t settle again. He doesn’t know what to do about it, what to feel, so he looks up flights heading for Washington because a phone call just isn’t quite the same.

 

Joe doesn’t visit Jeff Egbert often, mostly because the man is literally on the other side of the country. It takes him three flights to get there and most of a day, and it isn’t as if he gets a lot of time off as it is. Still, he does visit when he can because Jeff is family and Joe misses that. Besides, Jeff always looks really happy when he shows up.

 

Jeff’s house is oddly comfortable, like Joe belongs there. He isn’t sure about Jeff’s decorating skills but still, it feels... homey. As soon as Joe walks in, he finds himself relaxing and it’s like a load has been lifted from his shoulders. He feels lighter than air.

 

“You seem troubled, my boy,” Jeff says as he leads Joe to the living room and fetches a plate of cookies. Joe’s never been one for sweets but he takes one for politeness’ sake. He turns the cookie in his hands, trying to figure out a way to explain that won’t make him seem unhinged. The thing is, Joe knows exactly how weird his life is. He just tries not to think about it. He’s always been pretty good at rolling with the punches but he knows anyone else would be well within their rights to wig the hell out. He does, on occasion, like when he read about the World Wars and realizes he might have been involved or the first time he saw two men in an intimate embrace in public. The culture shock is… well, he can handle it. Mostly.

 

“Do you ever feel like the world is changing under your feet?” Joe asks finally because it’s all he can think to say. Jeff looks thoughtful as he refills his pipe.

 

“When is it not changing?”

 

Joe will give him that. “Lately, it seems like everytime I look around, something new slots into place.”

 

“Things are certainly happening.” Jeff sits back, mouth curled in a gentle, fatherly smile that gets Joe in the gut every time. “I find it best to let them.”

 

Getting back to his feet, Joe wanders to the fireplace and picks up one of many framed photographs of John. He doesn’t know much about John except that the kid is some kind of mirror image of himself. They look the same, or would if they were the same age (oddly, there are no photographs of him past age thirteen even though he should be a few years older than that,) but Joe has never grinned as innocently as John does in all his photographs. He’s never been that carefree. Looking at John pings him as _wrong_ , and not just because he doesn’t recognize the surroundings. Like having a twin, he supposes. Twins were often different, weren’t they? His father and Jeff certainly were.

 

Not that they’re really twins. Joe tries not to think of the logistics because they just don’t make any sense to him. Just like the itch.

 

“I always did. Let them happen,” Joe murmurs, words stilted and awkward. He always felt awkward when he talked about anything of actual importance. “A lot of very strange things happened to me and still do. Sometimes, it’s a little too strange.”

 

He hears Jeff get up, which is the only reason why he doesn’t startle when the older man rested a hand on his shoulder.

 

“Son, two months ago, the house next door turned into a double of my own and I suddenly found myself with a twin brother. Then I found out about you. I understand.”

 

Joe doesn’t have a clue what to even think about that. He’s going to have to check on that but right now, the only thing going through his head is, “His name Jeff, too?”

 

Jeff gives a low chuckle around his pipe, eyes sparkling under the rim of his hat. “No, thankfully. That would have gotten very confusing. His name is Jedd.”

 

Well at least there’s that. Joe can accept the small comforts of life. If a third Jeff Egbert had shown up (or a third John for that matter), that might have just been the last straw. Joe finds himself snickering along with him and it feels nice to just let go of some of the weirdness to someone who gets in. Jade does, most of the time, but she doesn’t have a double and it’s not exactly the same. She’s always been uncanny about her ability to adapt to anything.

 

“Would you believe I was born a century ago?” he asks and Jeff lifts a brow.

 

“You could not even imagine the kind of thing I might believe, young man.”

 

They spend the evening chatting over coffee and snacks. None of it is all that important but it’s soothing anyway. For a little while, Joe gets to ignore the things that feel wrong and just be. Invariably, they end up talking about John because Jeff is terribly proud of him, but he always gets so very wistful about it. At first, Joe thought John might already be dead because of it but as it turns out, John is off doing… Something.

 

It occurs to Joe only after he’s settled in the guest room for the night that that something might have to do with the itch between his shoulders. He would ask but he’s pretty sure Jeff won’t tell him, simply because Jeff has been very careful not to already. He wonders, idly, if that something involves his time traveling Dave Strider.

 

Joe thinks of Dave occasionally. It’s been almost three years, but Dave had always appeared at random so there is the chance that someday, Joe might see him again. He wants to. He knows it’s strange, maybe even a little stupid, wanting to see some stranger that he’s spoken only a handful of words with, but he really does. Dave is an odd sort of stability for him, for all that he isn’t at all stable.

 

Lifting a hand, Joe silently counts out the years between Dave’s visits. There aren’t enough points to have a real pattern yet. There’s no telling if Dave will ever come back. Joe drops his hand and stares up at the ceiling. He doesn’t even really know Dave except that the guy has the strangest way of speaking and a nice face, and saved them from getting trampled in a riot because that’s the kind of guy Dave is, apparently.

 

To be honest, Dave is kind of Joe’s hero and he’s had daydreams over the years where Dave takes him along on trips through time. He imagines visiting the time before man like some kind of pleasant day trip or maybe going to lunch in the distant future his Jules Verne novels have filled his mind with. He has three copies of _The Time Machine_ on his bookshelf, he’s seen every episode of _Doctor Who_ (he’s half convinced Dave is a Time Lord), and he’s collecting a fairly impressive menagerie of other time traveling stuff. To be honest, Joe is a little embarrassed about that but he can’t help that just about anything time related pings his interest when he isn’t engrossed in history books.

 

He’s sure if Dave knew, he’d be embarrassed over it, too.

 

The next morning, Jeff makes waffles and Joe takes his with just butter and cut strawberries. They read the paper like regular old fogies, snicker over the funnies, chat about the football scores, and enjoy the relative peace and quiet. A little after ten, there’s a staccato knock before Jeff’s double walks right in. He takes Joe a bit by surprise because yes, they really _are_ identical, even more than Jeff and Joe’s father. About the only differences Joe can see are in their clothing, and only in the color choices. The styles are identical. He wonders if Jeff is ever bothered by that.

 

“Sorry to interrupt,” Jedd says, phone in hand, “but I’m rather sure Roxy Lalonde is worth it.”

 

Jeff brightens considerably at the news and Joe watches, baffled, as a faint blush rises on the apples of his cheeks. Jeff takes the phone from an amused Jedd and hurries away with a little apology, excited as a school boy. It’s… mildly disturbing. And that leaves him alone with Jeff’s double. Joe glances over the man as Jedd eyes him right back.

 

“John, isn’t it?” Jedd says conversationally, holding out a hand. Joe takes it and then feels a little like his stomach is twisting as he realizes he’s been mistaken.

 

“Joe, actually,” he murmurs, managing a smile despite his unease. “I’m a cousin. John’s still away.”

 

Jedd nods and looks a little disappointed. “Apologies then. I suppose you are a little older than I’d expect from him.”

 

That… pings oddly and not just because Joe knows he’s several years older than John. Joe’s not sure why and he doesn’t openly question it just now (Jedd looks like Jeff but he isn’t Jeff and he isn’t the man Joe has mostly adopted as a father figure. He isn’t going to spill his theories to him.) It’s something to think about later, even though it’s unlikely he’ll figure it out. Joe has always felt a bit like he’s on the outside of something huge that he catches glimpses of but has never really seen and will never understand.

 

He chats with Jedd until Jeff comes back and- wow, Jeff’s cheeks have officially graduated into _rosy_. Joe teases him gently but Jeff just laughs him off as he hands back the phone. With a promise to keep him updated, Jedd takes his leave and Joe relaxes a little. He picks up the paper and folds it to stow for later. He’s barely finished before the paper disappears out of his hands.

 

Joe blinks. He looks at his hands and then up to Jeff, who doesn’t seem to have noticed anything amiss, then back to his hands. Joe swallows thickly. He thinks maybe he’s going crazy. First the crushing itch and now a disappearing paper.

 

“Joe?”

 

He looks up and Jeff is giving him a concerned look.

 

“Are you all right, son? You’ve gone white as a ghost.”

 

Joe doesn’t know what to say. He opens his mouth, then shuts it and looks at his hands. There’s no sign of the paper. He takes a slow, deep breath. Maybe there was no paper and he’s just tired and he needs to calm the hell down.

 

“Fine,” he says even though he’s not and Jeff knows he’s not, but he seems to decide not to push it.

 

After a few more quiet moments, Joe gets up and goes to clean himself up. He showers, shaves, and then the razor vanishes. That… Joe bites down on the noise that wants to leave his throat. Maybe this is just some kind of prank (some kind of really, _really_ good prank) and he’s not crazy. He doesn’t want to go to some sanitorium (do they even have them anymore?) and even if it is some kind of strange hallucination, maybe it’s just stress. He’s been working really hard lately.

 

His makeshift pajamas disappear when he tries to put them away. Everything he tries to put into his backpack vanishes and then for good measure, there goes the backpack itself. Joe rakes a hand back through his hair. This is even stranger than the wind thing and Joe can handle a certain level of odd, but this is too much. He realizes the trick is to think about stowing something when he holds it but that doesn’t mean he has any idea how to retrieve it again.

 

“Jeff?”

 

“Yes, son?”

 

“You said you understood strangeness.”

 

“I do.” Jeff gives him a glance that’s all understanding, curiosity, and a little worry.

 

This is the most idiotic thing he’s ever had to say. “I think I just spontaneously developed the ability to make things disappear.”

 

Jeff blinks. Then he makes him explain. And then he tells Joe about sylladexes. Joe decides he’s had enough of this day but he gamely empties his pockets and they figure out that his wallet has been inexplicably equipped with the storage apparatus (Joe understands the words “stable pocket dimension of subspace” but he can’t actualize the concept in the real world no matter how much he tries.) It takes them longer to figure out what kind it is (there are different kinds?!) and then Joe manages to retrieve the items from it. Jeff pats his shoulder and Joe tries not to feel like it's patronizing. This is by far the weirdest part of the future he's found so far.

  
Joe flies home and hangs with Jade on her off hours and goes back to work. The itch between his shoulders remains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some things are hard to adjust to, mkay.
> 
> Also, if you think you saw a cameo, you probably did.


	3. Chapter 3

The first kids come before he ever gets the chance to convince himself to call Joe, and he feels like this reluctance he has to call is exactly what she was talking about, when she told him not to put it off for too long. Rose is incredibly bossy, though, and she doesn’t actually know _everything_ , and Dave’s not required to listen to her advice, so he doesn’t. He’s not avoiding anything, it’s just...not an opportune time to call, yet. He’s got a handful of reasons over why it’s probably a bad idea to start talking to them, again, and no real excuses _to_ get re-involved with them. He’s got no real purpose to following them around like a creep (he ignores the fact that he never did), and besides that, he’s got no real clue how to hold a conversation with a teenager. He’s pretty sure society frowns upon that sort of thing in the first place.

There’s three of them, and they arrive just in time to interrupt Dirk as he finally goes to ask what Daddy Egbert had wanted to talk to him about, even though Dave knows he’s been itching to ask _since_ the fated phone call. He can keep waiting, though, because Dave’s still not going to tell him, no matter how annoying he gets - Dirk will never outclass the paparazzi when it comes to pissing people off. Joe and Jade are two of the few things left that he finds familiar these days, and he doesn’t want to share them even though he’s not sure he gets to keep them yet, either. If he does end up calling them, he will undoubtedly have to share them _eventually_ , and when that days comes he’ll probably be okay with it. For now, he intends to keep them for himself.

He darts off the couch, ignoring Dirk’s calculating stare, and grabs the pizza money from the table - he assumes it’s the pizza guy, anyway, because it’s about time for it to arrive. He and Dirk have spent the past several days being such terrible excuses for adults that he suspects they’re going to win an award for it any day now. They’ve gone through the gambit of terrible skateboarding games, and they’ve had many a deep conversation about hot people, and all the ways that they aren’t fair.

The kid who usually gets stuck delivering to their apartment is a hilarious little asshole, though - he doesn’t bother to hide the resentment he feels at having to trek up the stairs to the top floor, lugging pizza and drinks with him, just to give pizza to a pair of douchebags he knows are either going to hit on him or mock him. He’s actually planning to be somewhat decent to the kid today, maybe even give him more than the usual tip, because he and Dirk have managed to scrape up enough mercy for such things, between them.

Instead of opening the door to the familiar pimply face of a teenager with so much disdain in his gangly little body that he can barely hold it all, this is what he sees: three teenaged kids, scraped up and bloodied, wearing what look like pajamas from sort of themed set. Two of them are trolls, and that sends tenseness and wariness into his stance that doesn’t go unnoticed. The girl’s horns are short and conical, like someone just glued two ice cream cones to her head, and he has to admit that she’s wearing a pretty badass pair of shades, though there’s a spiderweb of hairline fractures across one of the lenses, and she’s got some seriously sicknasty bedhead going on. She’s ridiculously tiny.

The other troll has a mohawk and a rack that looks like it’d make a matador cry. Dave’s really got no idea how to pin him, though - his body language looks like he’s copying it from a nervous third grader who copied it from a wannabe gangster. Dave’s not sure if the kids trying to look tough or if he’s trying to look submissive, and he decides, abruptly, that these kids pretty obviously don’t mean any harm. They’re just kids, after all, and they look scraped up and tired, and the third kid seems at ease around them.

The third kid is him.

Or, rather, he guesses it’s Dirk’s version of him, the one that’s the kid brother rather than the older Bro, and Dave suddenly realizes how screwed up everything is. He’s looking into his own face, aged sixteen, and he recognizes everything in it and at the same time he _doesn’t_. He struggles to accept it, to wrap his mind around it, and he’s not the only one having trouble with it - his younger self seems to have gone still except for his breath, which seems oddly controlled.

“Um...Dave....?” Bulltroll speaks up, and his voice isn’t really as weak as Dave had assumed it would be, but it’s not exactly strong or unwavering, either. Short Dave flinches to hear his name and breathes out slowly, and Dave’s still trying to abruptly come to terms with the fact that he’s going to be chilling out in an apartment with an alternate version of himself. This isn’t him, he tries to reassure himself. He’s been through this kid’s room, and while there are definite similarities there are definitely very big differences, too.

Ice-cream troll tilts her head and seems to sniff the air before an incredibly sharkish grin breaks across her face; she swings her cane out (he’s just noticed it, and it’s a sweet-ass cane, but the implication that she’s _blind_ is somehow bewildering). He barely manages to duck out of the way of it before mini-Dave grabs her arm and reels it back in like it’s something he’s just gotten used to doing.

“Dave, is this you?!!” She asks, and then she cackles like it’s just the funniest thing she’s ever fucking said in her entire life. Dave is at a loss. Mini-Dave is not, because he snorts at her before he goes back to frowning in discontent at him; she’s officially broken the standstill they were having, though, and Dave can’t be certain he’s grateful for that, yet.

“Are you actually shitting me right now?” Teenage Dave Strider asks, and no, Adult Dave Strider is not shitting anyone right now because that’s not his kink, and he definitely wouldn’t do it to a sixteen year old look-alike, regardless of whether it was his kink or not, and also, he’s pretty sure he deserves to be more bewildered than the kid actively involved in these shenanigans is. He decides that a succinct answer is to say nothing at all, because surely the kid can feel his bemusement. “No. Just no. Fuck you, and fuck everything, I should have known things would still be fucked up and fuck me for thinking things might actually be _okay_ for once, jesus jumping jahosafats christ. I am going to my room and I’m not coming out, ever, for anything short of the goddamn Apple Juice waterfalls of paradise.” He ignores the stuttering protest of his shy friend, and the girl doesn’t say anything at all as he storms inside, just frowns after him and then shrugs.

“He’s been hanging out with Karkat too much.” Okay. Dave’s sure that’s supposed to mean something, but he’ll be over the moon if he can actually parse it.

He could stop Teenage Dave, but the kids look like they’ve been through hell and he knows himself well enough to know that Teenage Dave isn’t likely to give a shit if he approves of this biblical apple juice plan or not; besides, the faster the kid’s inside, the faster he realizes that he hasn’t, actually, been deprived of his older brother and given a look-alike replacement instead.

Bless his little heart, he almost makes it through the living room, all live-wire anger and poorly-hidden hurt tucked shoddily away behind the mask of his shades, like he expects a pair of aviators to put up all the barriers he actually needs to handle this shit. But Dirk’s sitting up on the futon and twisting around to see them, likely drawn out of his skateboard game coma by the sound of their commotion and probably even more once he’d heard _his_ Dave’s voice. Dave-the-Midget freezes up so fast at the sight of him that he nearly trips over himself in inertia, and Dave almost feels second hand embarrassment for him. The two of them go still, staring at each other like startled deer (Dave really is just embarrassed for the both of them now; it’s not even second hand anymore). He’s surprised, when Dirk proves that he’s actually capable of sincere emotion and makes the first move.

He’s around the couch so fast that Dave’s almost sure he actually flash-stepped to do it, and then he’s holding out a fist in front of his little brother. Pipsqueak doesn’t respond to it, at first; his arms are straight down at his sides, fists clenched, and his jaw is working. Finally, though, brofist meets brofist.

“...you rad-as-hell asshole.” Dave-the-Younger croaks, as their knuckles brush, and then he’s invading Dirk’s space for an incredibly sincere moment of hug-action, and Dave turns around before he accidentally pukes in his mouth a little or has to throw himself off the roof because he looked too deep into sincere brotherly love and his mind can’t handle that sort of horror.

Bulltroll is rocking on the balls of his feet as he watches the two Strider’s behind Dave, like he thinks it’s a totally adorable scene and not at all aware of the irony to be had in two insufferable pricks showing affection to one another. Sharkgirl, though, is quite suddenly _all_ up in Dave’s space, and he swears at her in surprise. Undaunted, her tongue flickers out in the space between them, and Dave once again re-names her to Snakegirl.

“You taste like cherry and justice, hehe! So, cooladult, are you going to let us in your hive or what?” Dave thinks about it, but eventually decides that he’s not going to touch that with a 52-inch pole and just stands aside to let them in. He waits at the door for a moment, but there aren’t any other blonde bastards coming down the hall, so he closes it and turns to view the new circus that’s come to town. Dirk and Dave are no longer being a pair of stains on the Strider name; they’re standing an acceptable distance away from one another, and the youngest Strider’s face is even as he introduces his two friends to Dirk, who seems to be taking the aliens pretty well, despite Dave’s explanation of the Baroness.

He’s going to have to find something to call other-Dave in his own thoughts.

Eventually, they all settle again. The kids are exhausted and not willing to talk about _why_ they’re exhausted, yet, and they keep checking their various communication devices - probably looking for news of their friends. An hour passes with no helpful news, though, until The-Little-Dave-That-Could’s phone lets out some sort of god-awful message alert sound, and he grabs at it with little grace; Dave watches his face, carefully, and while he doesn’t look necessarily disappointed by whoever it is, something tells him that it’s not who he wanted it to be. He slumps back on the table and waves his hand through the air in lazy dismissal.

“The auto-responder says that he and Dirk are here, but they’ll be late for some reason. Probably checking out all the sights, or some shit, all like walk into the gay club like what up I’m a big homo. Why didn’t I know you liked dicks, Bro? Like, literally and metaphorically, because post-scratch you has seriously shit taste in men.”

“Probably the same reason that you didn’t tell me you had a hankering for sausage, either, shortstack. It wasn’t any of your damn business.” Shortstack is a good one. Dave can remember Shortstack, and it’s easier than referring to the kid by his name, because it doesn’t matter if they’re technically alternate versions of the same person, because Mini-Dave is sort of a dipshit.

Dipshit is a better name, he decides.

He wants to meet _his_ Dirk, and Other-Dave’s just made it official that the kid is definitely in town. He’s just...apparently not as concerned with getting home and meeting his brother as Other-Dave was, and Dave guesses he can’t really fault him for that. Dirk’s gone his whole life without pandering to some adult figure, and Dave can’t think of a single reason the kid might have to be excited to see him - what does he care about Dave, besides _maybe_ a passing gratefulness for providing him with the means to survive the harsh future he’d been put into. He can’t ask about him, because there’s not an ironic way to sound eager to learn more about his genetic descendant, and he can only fathom the sort of dislike he might engender by going out to _look_ for him. Dave doesn’t want Dirk to think he’s butting into his business. He sits still and quiet as Other-Dave teaches his friends how to use the XBox, and Other-Dirk is doing something on that creepy website of his. When his own curiosity finally exceeds his ability to handle it, he finds something acceptable to ask about.

“What’s the Auto-Responder?” Other-Dave shrugs his shoulders in that typical teenage way of not answering a question asked him because he’s too busy with his friends, but the clicking of keys coming from Other-Dirk pauses, and the man frowns at his screen before looking up.

“I put mine offline almost as soon as I finished programming it, but I guess this post-scratch shota-version of me made a different decision. Who knows, maybe his idea of fun was having all of his least attractive traits and flaws thrown in his face hourly by his digital brain-clone. Personally, I found other ways to get my rocks off.”

It’s probably the least helpful thing this universe’s Dirk has ever said, but Dave gets that it’s a common theme with him. Still, a sentient programmed brain-clone is pretty weird, but Dave supposes he’s heard weirder things, like aliens and computer games that destroy and create universes, but all of it’s the sort of science-fiction bullshit it’s sometimes hard to wrap his mind around.

Dave’s already out of questions after just the one, and he’s back to thinking about his almost-kid and, yeah, this isn’t going to work.

So for once, he decides maybe taking Rose’s advice won’t kill him, unless he admits it to her, and he dismisses himself to the balcony like some sort of moth to a flame. Seriously, what the hell is up with him and balconies and their constant presence in his life? He doesn’t even really like balconies. He leans against the rail, though, turning his phone over in his hands as he puts it off for just a little bit longer.

What’s he even supposed to say? Joe or Jade will answer the phone, and Dave’s just supposed to say ‘hello’, like it’s no big deal that he dumped them off in the future with no advice or handy tips, or that he hasn’t practically stalked them across the entire fucking continent, like the world’s hungriest, most deranged spider obsessed with a single prey for snack-time.

“An apparently functionally retarded spider that doesn’t know how the other spiders catch their prey, maybe - ugh, this sounds like a sexual predator metaphor wrapped up nice and neat for the sassy detectives on SVU.” He mutters to the phone.

Besides, he can’t actually _just_ say hello. He’s trying to tone down the creepy obsessive slant, and breathing heavily into the phone with a single greeting and no explanation doesn’t really help. And anyways, it’s the sort of thing that screams socially awkward lamewad at people, and Dave can’t have that. He’s got a reputation to protect, even if these two kids know literally nothing about him except that he can time-travel. People who time-travel, lead rebellions, and once ruled Hollywood are smooth as hell douchebags, not people who stutter over the phone to a couple of teenagers.

“My ironies run deep,” He makes his excuses to the phone, but the phone still isn’t answering him. Dave scoffs, “I can’t really expect a couple of kids from the 1910’s to get that, you know?”

Who’s to say they’ll even remember him? Sure, he brought them to the future, but it’s not like there aren’t plenty of other things to take up their thoughts in said future. Daddy Egbert had seemed pretty certain they haven’t forgotten him, but to be fair, he probably thinks they know each other better than they actually do. He’s spoken to Joe three times and to Jade twice, and he feels like every time he’s spoken to them at all he’s just brought them more problems to deal with.

“Shit, they’re going to ask how I got their number,” He realizes, and then he resists the urge to groan, but only just barely. “Bet they don’t know Daddy Egbert’s giving their number out to random strangers. Dude’s like a phone number pinata at a future IRS member’s fifth birthday, just pouring out phone numbers all over the place like a horde of miniature debt collectors are beating the shit out of him with meter sticks.”

How’d Egbert know he might want their number, anyway? Like, he gets the dude is one of the few adults in this that has any clue what the hell’s going on (at least more-so than he and Dirk do, anyway), but he doubts the two of them go around talking about how they’re from the past all the time, mostly because he gets the impression that they don’t live at a mental health home. Maybe he’s talked to Rose, and Dave thinks that probably makes more sense than anything else - except, Rose wouldn't have known him, so maybe she talked to her alternate universe daughter and _she_ talked to him about it?

“This is stupid.” He decides when he’s done trying to figure out who knows who and who told who what in this awful mobius strip of timelines and universes. At some point, he’s opened his contacts list and scrolled down to the entry that reads ‘J&J’, so he presses call, puts it to his ear, and waits. He hears Joe greet him, and then he has a brief panic when he remembers he still doesn’t know what to say. But he’s nervous about Dirk, and confused about what’s going on, and kids are starting to show up again, so he says, “We won the game,” before he remembers that Joe’s probably even farther out of the loop about this shit than he is.

Joe groans, and Dave curses himself because he probably sounds like some sort of stupid prank caller, it’s not like he expects Joe to recognize his voice. He almost hangs up himself, before Joe gets the chance, but then the kid is talking again and Dave feels something in himself relax.

“You broke my streak. I was three weeks without losing it. So, did you get any fabulous prizes? The Price is Right seems to think you always do when you win. Either that, or the lovely ladies do.”

Dave’s surprised with how quickly it seems like Joe’s caught up, even if he’s caught up with things Dave’s not sure he’d recommend. The Price is Right, really? He supposes it’s better than it could be, but he still thinks Joe’s priority should have been Maury and Judge Judy. He’s reassured that Joe really does know nothing about the Sburb or timelines or any of the alternate bullshit, though, and he thinks for a moment about changing the subject, but it’s not like there’s any harm in continuing to be as oblique and vague as he’s always been with these kids.

“Well, we’re all alive.” He allows after he recognizes he’s paused maybe a tiny bit too long. “Hallelujah and praise the lord, the master computer has been defeated. We are the champions, it is us.”

“Are you in this time now?” Comes Joe’s next question, and Dave has to fall silent, because - yeah, he can get why Joe thinks he hasn’t been around because of time-travelling shenanigans. He’s not about to correct him and tell him that he’s technically been dead, though. And he thinks he’s done with the time-traveling for now, but he’s not about to give that a full blown yes, because there’s no telling what’s going to happen next. Maybe there’s more kids to save - maybe there’s not. He settles for a shrug before he realizes Joe can’t see that.

“Almost. Last minute things to fix.” He pauses, staring down at the road from the balcony, and even from up here he knows that none of those little figures are the blond he _wants_ them to be. “Kids to tuck in.”

“You have kids?” He can hear the incredulity in that voice, and he struggles not to smirk, because it’s both true and not.

“Whole flock of blond bastards. Shit’s sick as fuck. Gonna have to get a second apartment to handle the flood of teen angst.” It’s not untrue, and Dave’s been thinking about it on and off since they all showed up. There’s two bedrooms in this apartment, plus the futon, and that’s only barely enough to house the five of them currently present - his Dirk’s going to turn up soon, though, and Dave realizes that Dipshit had mentioned a ‘we’, so there’s a chance that ‘ the autoresponder’ is somehow a person and not just a sentient computer program. Alter-Dirk’s tentative mention of yet a third Dave, too, means that there will be eight people in this apartment and nowhere near enough space for them all. It’s a logistical nightmare, but they’re going to have to figure it out, because no one’s getting kicked out on the street after what they’ve been through.

Joe says something about visiting that Dave deftly out-maneuvers, and then Jade’s taking the phone to babble at him.

“You!” She exclaims, sounding a cross between delighted and peripherally offended. It takes him off guard, but then raises his brow despite the fact that she can’t see, and smirks.

“Me?”

“Yes, you! Don’t act like a dumb dummy, you dumb dummy!” Her voice lowers, just a little bit, and he gets the feeling that she’s turning away from Joe under the pretense of keeping this conversation at least somewhat private, though he doesn’t know why. She and Joe have lived out of each other’s pockets practically their whole lives, there’s nothing between Dave and her that can possibly be private enough to deny that. “Why didn’t you tell me all those years ago that you were a time traveler! That’s so cool, it definitely explains why you were so weird. I bet it must have been really strange to hear me talk about all those things that didn’t apply to this time, anymore.” He can’t help it; he snorts.

“Yeah, because it would have totally been believable if I’d come up to you and told you I was from eighty or ninety years in the future.” He...wasn’t really expecting her to remember that one conversation they’d had, though - he guesses that he probably helped her come to a decision about leaving, but he gets the feeling she’d have eventually gotten there on her own, anyway. She’s headstrong like that, and she and Joe probably fit into this world better than they had their own. “So, I guess you two have gotten settled in?”

“Oh yes, definitely! It’s so great here, Dave, you wouldn’t believe it.” He wonders, then, briefly, if they’ve talked about him before. He doesn’t really remember ever telling her his name, but he knows that Joe knows it. Maybe it doesn’t really matter, though. He listens to her chatter some more, and apparently she’s doing some kind of modeling thing, these days - probably teen vogue, who even knows and he doesn’t really question it. Joe’s doing nights at what Dave assumes is some sort of under-21 bar and there’s mentions of a band with a ridiculous name, but Dave’s sort of just spacing out to the sound of her voice so he doesn’t really catch it. He listens until she winds herself down, though, and he doesn’t realize how much time has passed until there’s a shadow from the doorway and he notices for the first time that the sun's dipped low enough behind the other buildings that the kitchen light is brighter, now.

Alter-Dirk motions at him, and Dave says a quiet goodbye before he gets to his feet and nods at Dirk in acknowledgment. “Sup?”

“Just thought you might like to know that your kids are here.” He says, and he steps to the side before Dave has a chance to knock him over in his rush to the living room. There’s two miniature versions of Dirk standing awkwardly just inside the front door; Snake-Girl’s chattering at them from the couch with some input from Bulltroll, but it’s obvious that the two newcomers are anxious about something from the stiff lines of their bodies.

He stops at the doorway between the kitchen and living room to just...study them, a little...okay, overwhelmingly _ecstatic_ , and yeah, fuck not being as embarrassing as Alter-Dirk and Dave, he can see now that it’s not happening. The two notice him almost immediately, and while one goes stiffer and stands up straight like it’s a damned inspection, the other tilts his head in obvious curiosity.

He’s never met his Dirk, but he can somehow tell which is which, and at the same time, he doesn’t really care that there’s a difference at all. The curious one elbows the nervous one, who squares his shoulders and takes a single step forward and then acts like he climbed an entire mountain, the way he forces himself to relax and holds out his hand.

“It’s an honor to finally meet you.” He says it exactly like that, formal and nervous like he’s meeting an impossible idol and simply can’t believe that this day has actually happened. Dave really, really tries not to be bothered by it, but he feels a flash of anger for whatever twist of fate decided to put Dirk and Roxy in such a lonely future. He and Rose were gone too soon, and it sucks how little of a difference they made - that even though they’d wanted to, Roxy and Dirk’s futures hadn’t been any brighter. Now there’s a couple of kids in the world that apparently think their parental figures are idols to admire and emulate in the face of adversity, instead of people they can turn to when they just need a shoulder to emote on or someone to fucking hug after they’ve been traumatized.

He takes that hand in his, and then pulls the kid forward; it’s easier than he would have thought, especially for a Strider, but he gets the feeling that it’s the last thing Dirk expected to happen so the kid falls against him easily; then he grabs the other one, the one he doesn’t have a real name for, yet, and he pulls him in, too, and he just folds over the both of them because they’re _his_. They’re his, and he’s finally got them within reach, and fuck anything and everything that tries to take them away.

The nameless one stiffens up the moment he’s pulled in, and while neither of them struggle to get away it’s sort of obvious that neither of them are aware of how hugs are supposed to work, or how they’re expected to respond. To be fair, it’s not exactly something _any_ Strider is good at, as far as he can tell.

“Could you please stop spilling your gross biological emotions all over me? I assure you, it’s not pleasant. Please apply them solely to Dirk so that I can mock him for being a dumbass about this entire thing and gossip to people about your paternal sentimentality without having to be subjected to it.”

What a mouthy little shit. Dave ignores him long enough to get a few more moments of hugging in, but when even Dirk starts to fidget in place he lets go and steps back, surveying them.

“Dirk, and...auto-responder?” He greets, and Dirk nods to his greeting while the other one cringes and scowls over at the Dave on the couch, who lazily salutes him.

“It’s Hal. My name? It’s Hal. Auto-Responder is how I began life, but since I’m actually the most intelligent being in this room, I’d really appreciate if you could refer to me by my name rather than my title, which has always lacked imagination.” Dirk lip slants in a scowl as he turns to Hal, and Dave watches as he witnesses the first ever Strider twin-fight.

“You could show a little respect to the man that ensured our continued existence. I know you know that I know you have actual respect in you. As you’re so fond of pointing out, we’re the same person. In any case, I’m not sure we can verify your claims to higher intelligence without taking into account that there now exists, in this house, an older, more experienced version of us.” Hal rolls his eyes, put upon, and turns to face _Dirk_ , and Dave steps back and wonders if he should find popcorn.

“That’s not the point. The fact that you created me means you know perfectly well that coding and programming actually makes me superior to you in our shared defense mechanisms, so it’s hardly my fault that I can keep a ‘stiff upper lip’ about meeting our idol and hero while you’re about to fall apart.”

“Of course I know that’s not the point; that’s the joke. Deflection is our mutual specialty, which I was participating in, in order to force attention onto you so that I could have a moment to regather my cool, but I should have known you’d once again twist it into some sort of obnoxious argument about literally nothing, just like always.”

“I know that you’re deflecting, but if I let you get away with deflecting all the time you’d never get over yourself. The true irony here is that the machine is trying to help the creator grow into a real human being.”

“If you try to talk to me about irony again, I will seriously flip a bitch. I will find an entire bitch to flip, you are actually that completely unbearable.”

“If I’m unbearable, then imagine what a glutton for punishment you must be for creating a duplicate of yourself to have to deal with.”

“Yeah, okay, the amount of meta in the room is officially stifling,” The oldest Dirk in the room interrupts, and Dave makes a note to get the man a drink because that entire conversation had started to cross the boundaries of ‘amusing’ to ‘painful to witness’. “Everybody sit down and shut up for two seconds - and for the smartasses in the room, ‘two seconds’ actually means until I tell you that you’re allowed to talk again.” It takes a moment for all the Strider’s in the room to obey, but it’s almost a little sad how quickly the trolls comply. He gets this weird feeling that they’re about as used to older authority figures as Dirk and Hal are, and the he has to wonder just how many kids this ‘game’ fucked over.

“So, it comes to my attention that we have limited space and a household population that’s almost quadrupled. Adults get the futon, Pyrope gets Dave’s room because she’s a fucking lady, and the rest of you little shits are delegated to my room, to argue over who gets the bed and who gets to sleep on shitty floor pallets.”

“What? Bro, come on, it’s only eight.” Other-Dave complains, waving the Xbox controller at Other-Dirk as if that’d make the asshole change his mind if he _did_ decided he wanted them all to go to bed right now. Indeed, the man snorts at him.

“Not now, dipshit, but I’m not arguing with any of you about sleeping arrangements at one in the morning when you finally decide you’re fucking tired.”

Of course, all the kids end up crashing between 10 and 11pm, all of them laid out in various places across the living room, and you and Dirk survey them before you give twin shrugs and each head for one of the two beds in the apartment. Like hell either of you are gonna decline the opportunity to have one last good night’s rest on a real bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have some feels. Also, this chapter takes place at the very end of Time Travel is useful, just to reference the timeline.


	4. Chapter 4

“Joe?”

It’s early enough that he doesn’t want to get up. Joe’s been pulling late nights at the club so he’s usually completely out of it by the time his head hits the pillow. He gives a mutter to that end, not caring if his garbled syllables are understandable in the least, and buries his face more against the sheets.

“Joe. _Joe_ , ugh. _John Jacob Egbert,_ you get out of bed right now.”

Much as he’d like to just ignore her, Joe knows that tone. That’s the tone Jade gets before she beats the crap out of someone and right now, it’s directed at him with his full name (which is always trouble) and for a bizarre moment, Joe wonders how he can convince his mother that they don’t really need to go to church today. Then he wakes up just enough to realize how stupid that thought is. For one thing, his mother is dead, and even if she weren’t, she’d never let him out of going to church even once.

He groans at the injustice of it all but finally opens bleary eyes and rolls onto his back. The light from the window, misty and faint, signals this as _very_ early and she had better have a good reason for getting him up because he went to sleep maybe three hours ago. His eyes feel gritty and sore and his head is cotton filled.

“What?” he grumbles and swallows because his voice is thick and rough from sleep.

“We have guests, dummy. Get up!!”

Another tone. The thing with Jade is you have to actually listen to her voice to know anything about what’s going on in her head, to know really what she’s saying. Under ‘ _do what I say or perish_ ’ is the ‘ _I am really freaked out right now_ ’ one. Joe comes awake in an instant and sits up.

“Let me get my cheaters. Are you-” he starts as he grabs his glasses.

“I’m fine!” she assures him hurriedly, hand at his shoulder, because she knows how quickly he can go into ‘protect from everything that moves’ mode. “Just, um, surprised? This is a doozy.”

Joe frowns. What in the Sam Hill could throw her _this_ off base? She doesn’t explain further but looks furtively at the door. That’s enough for him. Joe gets up and grabs his trousers, dragging them on with an inelegant hop towards the closet. Even this early in the morning, he’s not getting caught in his skivvies. A t-shirt is good enough, though, and once he’s got it over his body, he runs a hand over his hair to maybe give it some order before Jade leads him out to the living room.

There are two… uh… _people_. One is taller than the other by a little but they both look incredibly similar. That is, they’re both _gray_ with _horns_. Joe gives them a dumbfounded look. This isn’t exactly what he was expecting. He glances at Jade, who just nods, yes, she sees them too, and then turns back to their guests.

“….Huh,” he says because what else do you do? Joe ends up dropping to sit down in a chair across from the couch they’re sitting on and tries to figure out what, exactly, he is supposed to think about this.

The older dame (he thinks she’s older, anyway, because the other one just seems like a kid) is rather pretty in a strange way. He can appreciate her figure and her gams are choice. She also seems pretty self assured, though right now she’s staring at him like she’s trying to figure him out, too. The younger one is all big eyed and innocent (in a way that isn’t really innocence) and she makes him want to just protect her from everything, much like Jade. Somehow, she’s giving the impression of bouncing in her seat even though she’s not moving. He doesn’t know what to think of the hooded, red pajamas she’s wearing, which seem a lot more out of place than the other one’s black and green dress, even if said dress dips quite a bit more than he’s used to. (Jade only shows that much skin when she’s going out to party with her school friends.)

“Uh,” he begins and he feels like he’s taking an exam he didn’t study for. Joe rests his hands on his knees and glances to Jade standing beside him. She gives him a reassuring look, resting a hand on his shoulder to give it a squeeze. Joe draws in a slow breath before turning back to the... to the guests. “Hello. I’m Joe. Joe Egbert.”

“Like John?” the younger one says immediately, brightening up and… and of course this has something to do with John. Joe scrubs a hand over his face and feels Jade give him another reassuring squeeze.

“He’s my cousin,” Joe explains and both girls look like they have no idea what that means. What kind of rock have they been living under..? “Uh. He’s family.”

“Like a dancendent?” the younger one asks and Joe has no idea how to answer that.

“More like a twin hatched wriggler, maybe,” the older one says, but she sounds suspicious. “Or closer to a scratch version?”

“Close genetic relation,” Jade adds helpfully and that seems to be enough for them. The younger one looks thoughtful- Joe really needs to know their names. He rubs a bit of sleep from one eye. It’s way too early for this. Okay, so they know John, who has apparently been away doing _something_ for a few weeks (Jeff never explained what, exactly, that was, but gets wistful and worried when he talks about it at all so Joe tries not to ask him, especially after one memorable time when Jeff slipped up and said that he’d died. Joe doesn’t think it’s figurative, regardless of how Jeff is still chugging along just fine. He doesn’t like what that could mean.)

He’s relieved when the older one extends her hand and introduces herself as Porrim Maryam, at least until he feels the edges of claws against his skin and looks. They’re… really bright for such a grayed out lady. Joe lets go and then does the same with the younger (“Aradia Medigo, pleasure to meet you! Your hive is very nice.”)

He… doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. Joe stares at them dumbly, mind still slow with sleep, and then Jade clears her throat beside him. She gives him a meaningful look and wiggles their first aid kit in front of his face. It finally dawns on him that the two guests seem roughed up (and there are smears of green paint on Porrim? He thinks it’s paint??) so now that the introductions are over, he fetches a wet towel and they pick a guest each to handle. Joe takes Porrim because… because. She’s nice enough as he cleans out a scrape on her shoulder (it’s green blood, what has he gotten himself into?) and seems exhausted enough that she doesn’t feel like talking (which is perfectly fine with him) except to comment about how good he is with his hands (he manages not to blush but that’s more to exhaustion than self control.) Aradia jabbers with Jade, who’s good-natured about it, but even she’s just two steps away from unconsciousness. Joe wonders what they’ve just gone through as Porrim proceeds to start falling asleep on herself.

They end up giving the dames his room and they’re just too tired to refuse the offer. His bed is big enough to sleep both and they’re out as soon as they drop, tangled in a pile of limbs that should be uncomfortable but doesn’t seem to bother them. Joe stands in the doorway, watching them for a while before he shuts the door and goes to sit with Jade on the couch. Neither of them is quite sure what to think about this, exactly. Jade shifts, leaning to rest her head against his shoulder and Joe wraps an arm around hers.

“So this is a total gas,” Joe murmurs and Jade giggles with only a faint edge of hysteria that has him grinning ruefully.

“You should have met them at the door!!” Jade turns her face into his neck and settles firmly against his side. “Aradia could barely stand, that leg right? And Porrim just… hee hee, she just asked out of the blue if we had any bandages! Like nothing was out of the ordinary!!! I thought at first that it might be some kind of joke but I couldn’t just turn them out.”

No, Joe wouldn’t have either. But… _But._ What does he do now? He doesn’t want to, but he’s going to have to call Jeff and get some kind of explanation. If they know John then this involves him and Joe doesn’t really _want_ to be dragged in, but it doesn’t look like he has a choice in the matter.

And then he needs to call into work. Something tells him, he’ll want today to figure everything out. He fishes out his phone and leaves a message at the club that he’ll be taking a sick day. Amos doesn’t answer but he’s not worried.

A half hour later, after a long shower to clear his head, Joe has Jade steal some clothes out from his room and he gets himself together. He feels better fully dressed, like he has some kind of barrier against the utter weirdness that has plagued him this morning. Grabbing his phone, Joe heads up to the roof to get some fresh air because everything always seems okay when there’s wind in his hair.

Even after settling in a folding chair at the edge of the roof, it takes him a while to actually make the call. It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy talking to Jeff, but… Joe really isn’t comfortable _asking_ him about John. Getting told about him is different. Joe likes Jeff and he understands that the guy is completely head over heels for his own kid, so he can accept the fatherly regard and habit of going on and on about John, but he’s never actively sought information about him. He just… Thing is, Joe has no logical reason to resent John and, well, he _doesn’t_ really (it has far more to do with his father and Jeff, to be honest) but he also doesn’t want to have anything to do with the kid. It’s… It’s complicated. More so than Joe knows what to do with.

He makes the call regardless because Joe has never run away from anything in his life (at least not for long) and he’s not going to start now. When the phone picks up, it’s not Jeff. It’s a younger voice, edged in exhaustion and cheer that proudly chirps out, “Egbert residence!”

It takes Joe a second to realize who he must be speaking with. John sounds about like how he’d imagined, but it’s jarring anyway. The tones are all wrong even when the body of it is all Joe’s and the difference jars him badly even with the distortion of the phone line to soften the blow. He even says their last name just a little differently than Joe does, quicker delivery with less attention to the consonants, no trace of the New York drawl.

Behind, Joe can hear some kid shouting about random things and the gentle rumble of Jeff’s voice and there’s someone else, too, but Joe can’t catch much of him. Sounds like a real party. He’s counting at least five voices, including a boy with a low, languid speech he’s heard in movies but not in person, who sounds strained and tired and completely done with everything, and a girl who is far too cheerful and uses slang Joe's never heard.

“Hey,” Joe says finally because he needs to get this done. “Is your father home?”

“Uh. Yeah. Who’re-”

“There is something _incredibly_ fucking wrong with your stupid pink thinksponge if you sincerely believe I might actually lower myself to eat that noxious sludge you call _food!_ ”

Joe winces because the shouty kid must be near the phone now and he is _loud_. John snickers like it’s a big joke to have someone yelling in his house and maybe it is but Joe’s head is starting to hurt from all the surprises today. He’s really, _really_ tired and he doesn’t want to deal with this right now.

At least the ones that came his way are _quiet_. Or just exhausted. He hopes they’re quiet. (Even Aradia’s babble had been relatively low in volume.)

“Look, can I please talk to your father? This is Joe. He knows me,” Joe tries but John’s not really listening. He’s yelling back at some kid named Gamzee, something about clowns, and Joe rubs his eyes so he won’t throw the phone. “Hey!”

“Sorry! So, uh, who are you?”

He is not going to hate this kid on principal. “Joe.”

“Right.” John is quiet a moment that Joe assumes means he’s going to find Jeff. Joe hopes he wasn’t annoying when he was John’s age. If the opposite was true, he could understand why his father spent so much time at the shop. Whatever circus has erupted at Jeff’s house continues merrily along and what snippets Joe catches are confusing as all get out. He hears the John’s muffled voice and then finally, _finally_ he gets Jeff on the phone.

“Sorry, my boy, but this is not the best time to call-”

“I know, I hate to bother you, but I’ve got two gray skinned dames with horns crashed out in the bedroom right now and they cottoned on to John being involved.”

There’s a silent beat. “Trolls showed over there?”

Trolls? They call themselves _trolls?_

“What? Who? Who is it? Which trolls?!” the shouty kid yells from the background and Joe hears Jeff’s muffled efforts to quiet him. He’s really glad that that one didn’t come his way.

“Aradia and… What was her name…? Uh… Porrim. Aradia and Porrim,” Joe supplies and Jeff relays the information. The shouty kid drops it a notch, muttering along with someone who sounds a little off in a way that makes Joe even more uncomfortable.

“So we’re only missing Davesprite, Jane, Feferi, Meenah, and Jade?” he hears John say and that’s…

Is there a little Jade look alike, too? Joe doesn’t like that at all. He doesn’t want to imagine how different she might be, considering how different John is from him. It’s at that moment Joe realizes he might be freaking out a little but... Jade has always been a constant in his life, steady like a well wound clock, and he doesn’t want to see a version of her that isn’t.

“So… these are John’s friends?” Joe manages through the internal stress.

“It appears so! They seem to be showing up willy-nilly all over the country.”

And that could not be stranger. Joe tries to wrap his brain around this. He decides maybe he doesn’t actually want to know the details. In the meantime, it seems he has a few house guests. He’s kind of honor bound to look after these two, at least until Jeff can possibly fetch them, but it sounds like he’s got his hands full.

“Well. Okay then.”

“Be mindful of their cultural differences, my boy. Things are very different where the trolls come from!”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Where they come from… Is there some lost tribe of gray people in Africa in the future or something…? Joe doesn’t ask. He just doesn’t want to know. He’s a little overwhelmed. “Well… good luck with your group.”

“Rightly so. Have a nice day, Joe.”

Joe again resists the urge to throw his phone after he ends the call. He takes a few breaths, slips it in his pocket, and then hangs his head over the back of his chair. This is actually stranger than when Dave brought him to the future. It rattles him deeply. At least before, it was just him and Jade doing what they did best: surviving. Now he’s getting dragged into weird shenanigans that include strange people with candy corn horns and the kid who looks just like him. He… hm. He’s not cool right now at all.

The John Issue had been quiet in the back of his head, easy to ignore, but now that John isn’t some far away kid he’ll never meet, it’s… not so much. Joe is going to have to figure that out but not right now.

One thing at a time.

Right now, he needs to figure out what to do with his guests. He can’t just turn them out (Jade would never let him be so cruel, even if he had it in him to do it) and depending on what these “cultural differences” end up being, he’ll have to ease them into life here, at least until something else starts up. Joe’s pretty sure between his and Jade’s income, they can at least feed their new guests for a little while. Getting a job with that kind of appearance? Might be difficult.

Joe fiddles with the phone until he can remember how to pull up his bank account. It’s one of the few functions he’s managed to figure out on the thing. He checks over the finances, checks the balance of their emergency account, and the pit of his stomach drops a bit more. They can manage for a little while, but… Joe goes over the options in his mind. Doubling the household expenses, they’ll burn through the emergency fund quickly, even if they’re careful. He and Jade were already frugal as it was…

He takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s tired but thinking about solving one problem at a time helps him settle and focus. This is something he can handle and he’s _going_ to. He considers briefly Jade catching a few extra shifts at the bookstore but her class load isn’t forgiving enough for that and besides, he doesn’t want to drag her down. Joe makes a mental note to look over the paper and see if there’s someone hiring a day shifter. He’ll make it work somehow.

Joe drags his glasses back on and stares up at the cloud dotted sky. What he really needs to do is talk to someone outside the whole thing. Clumsily, Joe cues up pesterchum on his phone and begins his usual struggle with the modern art of communication.

– **eagerBibliophagist [EB] began pestering tellurianGladiator [TG] at 9:26 --**

EB: are you free right now?  
TG: do the chinese eat eggs boiled in the pee of prepubescent boys  
TG: actually ignore that question  
TG: we gotta keep your delicate twenties sensibilities pure  
TG: whats up  
EB: the chinese?! i don’t actually know how to respond to that.  
EB: i think the phrase you’re looking for is "are the irish drunk".  
TG: maybe the phrase im looking for is  
TG: are the kennedys hot  
TG: what then joe  
EB: who are the kennedys? i haven’t come across that yet. are they a band?  
EB: or a comedian troop? then i might be interested.  
TG: a little of both really  
TG: but this is getting shady like nixon so  
TG: spill whats got your beeswax all balled up  
TG: am i using your weird slang right yet  
TG: ive been practicing  
EB: well you’re not terrible at it.  
EB: here, i will reciprocate with something modern jade taught me  
EB: 8B  
EB: she says it is an accurate representation of my face.  
TG: i cannot even begin to handle what just happened  
TG: and also  
TG: a plus subject dodging skills but you cant shake me off the trail that easily

Joe can’t help the rueful smile that brings. He’d been pretty sure Dave wouldn’t let him off the hook that easily but… Well. He’s not sure how much he really wants to tell him. It’s mostly nice just to talk to him. The fact that he answered immediately and started in like they were best buddies just… makes him feel so warm inside. Joe’s pretty sure Dave is just bored or might be patronizing him with the attention, but he still likes it. He’ll still take what he can get until Dave cuts him off.

And doesn’t that just sound a little desperate. He sighs, shakes his head a bit, and then resolves not to run away from the offer to listen. 

EB: well  
EB: i suppose i should stop beating my gums.  
EB: i have some guests that could not in any way be expected.  
EB: at least they were nice while conscious.  
TG: are you trying to gently break it to me that youve decided to become a serial killer  
TG: joe thats not the kind of life i wanted for you  
TG: but i guess ill help you out  
TG: remember not to lick the dead bodies the police have ways of tracking you with spit nowadays  
EB: what? no!  
EB: no, they went to sleep! and not in any nefarious ways! i think they were in trouble before they came to the apartment?  
EB: jade and i had to patch them up.  
TG: fuck really  
TG: okay important question  
TG: are they in trouble like drug mafia trouble or  
TG: how the fuck do they live with this hella ridiculous skin condition trouble

Joe stills. He stares at the screen as if it can give him a confirmation of what that really means. Because it’s one thing to _suppose_ Dave is involved in the crazy and to get confirmation on it. The pit of Joe’s stomach tightens into knots.

EB: ...  
EB: then you know about trolls, too?  
EB: are you caught up in this john thing?  
TG: sort of but not really  
TG: its complicated but suffice it to say i had my own things before i got dragged into another kids thing who just happened to be caught up in the john thing  
TG: i dont even really know who john is to be honest  
TG: except for minidaves favorite person or whatever

For some reason, that actually makes Joe feel a little better. Then he feels a stab of guilt for his relief. Not now. Handling one thing at a time, remember? 

TG: like this entire thing is a little over my head to be honest but ive a couple of extra rad kids who i was not prepared to see at my place too   
TG: theyre sort of in a vagrant state right now from what ive gathered   
TG: no place to go so they came here   
EB: yes, jeff has a few at his house as well. hopefully the ones with you are quieter than one of the ones i heard when i called him earlier.   
EB: fairly sure i’ll be looking after these two for a little while.   
EB: did you get a lot of them there?   
TG: is that going to be a problem   
TG: like do you need some striderly intervention   
TG: just come up there and snatch the trollkids off your hands   
TG: its cool if youre freaking out about this you never really asked for any of it   
TG: and yeah theres two troll kids who are   
TG: well one of them is quiet but im pretty sure its just because he looks like hes about to pass out half the time   
TG: the other ones decided that our toaster is a piece of lawbreaking scum and wants to know when we can hold trial for it   
TG: they cool   
TG: back to the original question though are you gonna be ok   
EB: i   
EB: yes   
EB: i’m peachy.   
TG: kind of finding that a little hard to believe with the amount of pure enthusiasm you put into that reassurance man   
TG: like seriously you can talk to me you know   
TG: im not about to judge someone for freaking out

Joe rakes a hand back through his hair. He’s not sure how much he wants to unload, especially on Dave. Especially when Dave seems so willing to listen. He’s… Joe doesn’t want to let Dave down. It’s stupid and weird, how much he cares about that, but he doesn’t want to give Dave any reason to regret plucking him out of time. Not when Dave is the only person outside of Jade and Old Man English to really care if he was all right.

EB: no, it’s okay. the trolls are swell. they were polite and just kind of crashed after jade and i cleaned them up.  
EB: they don’t bother me. it’s bizarre, yes, but i can handle dames with some strange skin condition and horns.  
EB: it sounds like i got off easy anyway.  
EB: they’re all aces.  
TG: okay  
TG: all of them are pretty tired i guess  
TG: actually here have this pic of all of the kids  
TG: [multimedia message sent]  
TG: because theyre fucking adorable and theyll make everything feel better  
TG: so stop being sad and freaked its weird  
EB: i’ll get jade to show me how to look at that. she’ll get a kick out of seeing your flock too.  
EB: thanks.  
EB: for being there, i mean.  
EB: it helped. with the problem i don’t have.  
TG: like ive got anywhere else to be  
TG: but no problem literally anytime  
TG: get it because time  
TG: yeah im tired this material isnt my best  
TG: also you literally just have to click the thing to see the pic but ill let you and jade curiously prod the phone  
TG: it makes you two happy  
EB: don’t worry, i know your usual level of irony and won’t hold this against you.  
EB: i’m really glad you’re going to be around this time. i wanted to get to know you.  
EB: the clicking thing worked. wow, that one looks just like you.  
EB: your kids are cute.  
TG: good man  
TG: yeah i dont think im gonna be doing any more time travel shenanigans so no worries  
TG: shit was cray  
TG: yeah the little shit looks just like me imagine that  
TG: the other two look just like their mom  
EB: they’re cute too.  
EB: okay. i think i’m going to go watch more stooges with jade. she said something about making pancakes.  
EB: and i love pancakes.  
TG: aight  
TG: ill pray for your soul or whatever you do for people who still watch the three stooges  
TG: i gotta go sort out this whole seven people one bathroom situation anyway  
TG: see ya  
EB: good luck with that.

– **eagerBibliophagist [EB] ceased pestering tellurianGladiator [TG] at 10:08 --**

Joe actually does feel better. It’s nice to know Dave’s around and just as fringe-connected as he is through the kids. He cues up the photograph of Dave’s crowd and wonders idly if Dave’s little look alike is like Dave at all or as strange as Joe’s. The expression is right, at least. He’s not sure if that’s comforting or not but Dave seems to be handling things just fine. His trolls both seem young even if the guy is pretty big and something about the girl’s shark tooth grin makes him wonder how dangerous she might be. The other two human teens don’t really resemble Dave much outside the coloring and shades (pointier though, odd that) but they’re close enough for blood relation. Joe’s starting to think the blank looks are a family thing and it’s… kind of endearing, actually. On Dave, it just looks normal. On his kids, it’s like they’re trying too hard to be cool. Which is adorable.

The taller two make Joe wonder what their mother looks like. He tries to imagine something but it just ends up being a slightly shorter version of them with more hair and a curvy frame, sporting the exact same expression. It’s enough to let him smile. He takes a few minutes to imagine their interactions but ends up getting a case of the giggles that has his chest aching and him riding the edge of hysterics.

“Calm down, man,” he mutters to himself and then he draws for the wind swirling around him. He feels the gusts like a physical caress over his skin and through his clothes. Carefully, it lifts him from the chair until he floats weightless a few feet above it. Joe closes his eyes and lets the familiar winds soothe him back down again.

He doesn’t bother tracking how long he hangs in the air, keeping a lazy ear out for anyone who might come up and see his magic trick. When he knows he’ll be calm and rational, Joe lowers himself onto his feet, folds up the chair, and heads inside.

There are delicious pumpkin spice pancakes waiting for him. Joe kisses Jade’s cheek and then finds _The_ _Three Stooges_ playing on an oldies rerun station. Jade called into work as well so they stay on the couch most of the morning, letting the trolls sleep as long as they need. It’s peaceful, but Joe knows it’s pretty much just the calm before the storm.

Or maybe the calm _after_ the storm? He’s not sure. The dames seemed to have gone through quite the trial, anyway. He and Jade decide they’ll do their best to make it easy on them. Who knows? Maybe Aradia and Porrim will end up being awesome roommates... which reminds Joe that he’ll have to go down to the office and inform the landlord of his new guests. He doesn’t look forward to it, mostly because the landlord has been trying to get into his trousers since he first moved in. There’s only so much Joe can take in the name of cheap rent and roof access.

Joe forces himself to focus on the television. Jade is still against his shoulder and when he catches her face through the fall of her hair, it’s slack and relaxed. He decided he might as well take up her example and eventually naps with his cheek pillowed against dark hair.


	5. Chapter 5

When the next morning rolls around like that douchebag ex-convict uncle in all the sitcoms that drops in for an unannounced visit because he was 'in town', Dave curses the clock and then his phone, before he finally decides to check the text message that woke him up. It’s too goddamn early, somewhere between seven and eight in the morning and he hasn’t woken up this early since he was still in school. That the text is from Joe only _kind_ of takes away his irritability, but he responds to the ‘are you busy?’ with some bullshit answer about Chinese kids and pee. His shitty word filter is even shittier this early in the morning, but he tries to remember that it’s probably later wherever the fuck Joe is.

The conversation that follows in red-and-blue is enough to get him a little more awake and a little more worried, because there are trolls popping up in _Boston_ , of all places. He’s hoping the other kids are going to (or are, maybe, he hasn’t checked in with Lalonde today) pop out near their homes like the Striders did, and maybe drag some trolls along with them, but if there are trolls popping up way the fuck out there...

They might have to figure out a way to run interference sooner, rather than later. He tries to smooth out Joe’s shock and possibly imminent nervous breakdown, makes sure everything’s in hand and that he doesn’t need to immediately hop on a plane to go on a ‘save Joe, troll retrieval’ mission. When they’ve got things as settled as they’re going to get right now, he sends Joe a picture he took of the kids last night before exhaustion set in and jokes around a little before he wraps it up.

He lays in bed for a few moments before he can convince himself to get up.

He goes through his entire morning routine with all the mundanity of a nine-to-fiver's ritual. It's so normal it's almost surreal, but he's still too sleep-crusted to really suss out what about it makes it seem so weird. He brushes his teeth, has yet another of those momentary phases where he wonders if it'd be considered fashionable if he went with the 'I drank literally all the beers last night and couldn't be bothered to shave this morning' look before he decides he might as well shave. He has himself to look good for, dammit. And he would definitely tap that.

He forgoes winking at his own reflection, because that'd be skeevy and reflections can't give consent. Right now, Dave exists in a world where that is a perfectly legitimate thing to worry about.

It's too early to get dressed so he pulls on his bathrobe instead, and then he makes for the kitchen like the uncaffeinated zombie he is. His first footfall out of the hallway and into the living room has that same kind of rope-to-the-belly-button atmosphere to it as time-traveling does, though, because there's a group of kids on the Shitty Futon that haven't been there any other morning of this strangely peaceful otherworld, and despite having to wake up and immediately deal with some of the consequences of their arrival, it still hadn’t completely sunk in under the sleep that they were actually _here_ now.

Relief and responsibility pool into his gut in equal measures, quickly overrun by the sudden concern, because now that he's not punchdrunk with the final snap of suspense, waiting for the next thing to happen or not happen or whatever the fuck's been going on (of wondering if any one of them would ever see their kids only to have that anxiety finally culminate, the relief of the perception that the danger has passed), all he can see is how banged up they are.

Hal's the only one who seems completely unharmed, free of cuts and scrapes or the beginnings of some pretty wicked looking bruising. He and otherDirk got here free of injury, fresh as their first day at the market, but the kids don't seem to have fared as well. There's dark stains on their clothes that he's pretty sure is dried blood, though it's way easier to see the troll-blood on Bullhorns clothes, despite the fact that they’re black, and Hal actually seems to be scotfree of injury or mess.

Bullhorns notices him first, but probably only because Hal's busy patching up what looks like a sick nasty (in that it's both sick looking _and_ nasty) cut of some mysterious origin on Dave's arm. The kid waivers for a moment when their eyes meet, but then straightens his shoulders and goes back to studiously watching the 'How to Patch Up Your Human' show. Dirk (the little one, _his_ Dirk) looks like he woke up long enough to make himself ramen so that he could pass out next to it, face mashed up against the table and the noodles long cold and soggy. Gross. He hears shuffling and a faintly ominous cackle from the kitchen, which tells him where the little lady's wandered off to (should she be alone in the kitchen with the sharp utensils? He can't be sure, but he's _almost_ certain she's blind).

It looks like he's the only adult awake, but he's not actually surprised by that – otherDirk has a shitty circadian rhythm and he can't be sure if the man is diurnal, nocturnal, or some other weird, inbetween thing. He'd thought he'd seen every kind of schedule imaginable, between his experiences as a movie director-cum-rebellion leader-cum-time traveler, but then he'd been forced to share an apartment with Dirk Strider, Sr. and he stands indubitably corrected.

“-and an average thirty-percent of humans in the United States of America are actually _carriers_ , so you could actually already be infected - hell, there’s three other humans currently on the premises, maybe _they_ carry it and you’re being infected right now. That sucks, man, I feel for you.” Hal is saying, and Dave’s eyebrows furrow as he tries to parse what the hell he’s talking about.

“Holy shit, you’re so annoying. I don’t have a staph infection, bro, I’ve literally never had one ever, and I’ve had plenty of cuts and scrapes in my time.” Says his younger doppleganger, and Dave can hear him rolling his eyes from where he’s standing.

“What’s that human idiom, again? Oh, right, there’s a first time for everything.”

“I think that’s actually what bi-curious frat dudes say to their drunk bros to canoodle strings-free blow jobs out of them.”

“Haha, oh man, humans are gold.”

“Somehow I feel like it might have been a better idea to sleep in a few more hours,” He interrupts, and even Bullhorns jumps a little, despite already knowing he was there. Twitchy kid. Actually, make that plural. Hal looks up at him, free of shades but probably only so he could see the wound he was patching up better and alterDave raises an unconcerned eyebrow at him. “Morning, twerps.” He adds, just to be polite.

“Sup?” His alterself asks, but he only replies with a shrug as he leans over the back of the futon to get a better look at their injuries. It’s not pretty looking, and he feels a frown try to tug at his lips. _Damn_ , they’re really banged up. Definitely look like they’ve been in a fight and Dave and Dirk especially look like they might not have necessarily won that fight. Hal hasn’t even got a single scratch on him, even up close, and it’s hard to tell on that grey skin, but Dave thinks he sees bruising on Bullhorns, too - most of his blood (it’s weird to think of it as blood, if only for the color alone) seems concentrated on his shirt.

God, they’re wrecked.

“Are we gonna need to take you guys to the hospital?” He can’t stop himself from asking it, even if he hardly needs miniature-Dave’s pointed over-the-shades _Look_ and eyeroll to help him realize what a stupid-as-hell suggestion it is.

“Yeah, sure, let’s all go to the hospital. It’ll be a fucking party, it’ll be Striders, plus hospital staff, plus concerned citizens, plus Child Protective Services. Like, hey, woah, here’s these two dudes with a bunch of kids that may or may not belong to them, and these kids are beaten _all_ to hell but these dudes are completely fine, that’s not suspicious at all. Oh, and hey, look, two of these kids are freakish aliens but could you just ignore all of that and patch us up so we can all go on with our day, pretty pretty please? Awesome idea. It’s cool, nothing we can’t handle, Schroedinger’s Brother over here is actually pretty handy with a first aid kid - _ow_ , shit, fine I’m sorry, I mean _Hal_ is pretty handy with a first aid kit, even if he’s got a shit bedside manner.”

Hal looks smug to have convinced Dave (with a particularly _pointed_ stitch of that needle, but it looks like he’s finished and there’s only about four stitches all in all) to call him by his chosen name. He’d ask where someone who started out as a computer program learned how to do stitches, but A.) he doesn’t actually want to know, and B.) it’d probably come out sounding offensive. He rubs a tired hand over his face, but none of them have bled out overnight, so hopefully they really _are_ fine.

“And Sleeping Beauty over there?” He asks, because the passed out next to his food thing had only been cute before he’d realized that these kids had actually been hurt. Hal only rolls his eyes at the worry that’s obvious in his voice.

“He’s fine. He was up before all of us, I guess, because he patched himself up and left the first aid box out. The little tyke’s just tuckered out because he tried to pull some soul shit he didn’t have the energy left for.” Right. The only thing Dave really gets out of that is ‘Dirk’s fine too you worried sap, he’s just sleeping because we’re all exhausted as fuck, jesus’.

The worry doesn’t evaporate, really, but it does lessen. He lingers for a few moments longer, watching as they move on from Dave to Tavros on their first-aid adventure, before he finally convinces himself that they’re not going to die if he takes his eyes off of them. They’re worryingly good at taking care of themselves, but then, they’ve been on their own for three years, now.

He tries not to worry about it by thinking about coffee, instead.

He almost forgot about Sharky, but she doesn’t let him stay absent-minded for long. She’s pulled out at least half the pantry and set up the counters in a way that’s honestly a little disturbing. There’s faces drawn on the cans with black marker, all of them a little off kilter enough to give the uncanny valley effect despite the fact that they are literally just frowny faces on cans.

She’s wearing a bright red scarf around her eyes, like some kind of bulky blindfold, and on the stove in front of her she’s positioned one of those jumbo cans of sweet potatoes (where the fuck did she find _those_ ) whose face is literally nothing except markered-on teeth, and the toaster, who looks terrified for it’s immortal soul.

Yeeep, there’s the Twilight Zone feeling again.

She turns to face him when he enters the official kitchen area, despite the fact that she’s wearing a blindfold (wait, why does she need one isn’t she _already_ blind?) and despite the fact that he’s as quiet as a goddamn ninja. There’s nothing for it, though, and despite his general distrust of trolls he doesn’t want to come off as...impolite, or some shitty thing like that (it’s probably because she looks the most banged up of all of them, though most of what he can see of her are bruises and white, teal-stained bandages).

“What’s the haps, lil lady?” She grins with everyone of her sharky little teeth, and suddenly, he feels more disturbed by her than by the silently judging can audience.

“Strider! It’s so nice of you to _finally_ join us. You’re just in time to witness the sentencing.”

“The sentencing?” He parrots back at her, because he’s just - he’s really confused, now. It’s entirely too early to be dealing with trolls and their weird as fuck culture. He inches closer to the coffee machine (it doesn’t look like it’s a part of the little scene she’s set up, thank God) so he can get the caffeine ball rolling, and waits for her to elaborate.

“Yes. This toaster has failed it’s very purpose in life, which is to provide edible sustenance to the household. A reliable witness has contended that it’s a ‘piece of shit that’s never worked like God intended it to, what even is the point of it’, and I can’t abide by that sort of flagrant dismissal of one’s duties!”

“So, you...set up a trial, for it?” He thinks he’s starting to catch on, as weird as it is, but her grin returns to show him that he’s definitely on the right track. “Is that what’s up with the whole blindfold thing, some kind of ‘justice is blind’ metaphor? Wait, how does an alien kid get that reference?”

She doesn’t answer, but the way her shoulders hitch up a little with tension keeps him from repeating the question.

“Alright, hit me with it then. What kind of punishment are we doling out to this affront to the law?” He asks, because he’s actually almost kind of intrigued. Even if the Sweet Potato judge’s toothy face is even creepier now.

“His Honorable Tyranny,” Jesus fucking christ, of course that’s what they call their judges, “has decreed that Toaster should suffer no less than the humiliation of a public hanging. Are there any objections?” She stares intently at him, so he assumes the canned audience is perfectly okay with this turn of events. He offers her a shrug.

“Nope, not a single objection is sight, it’s like they flew away with all of those fucks I once gave.” She wrinkles her nose at the statement, but seems overall pleased.

“Excellent, then it appears that the toast will die alone, today. I think the solo hangings are always more poetic.” This is getting morbid as fuck, but he can’t make himself stop watching as she gathers the toaster up in her hands and starts doing complicated things with the cord. It looks like maybe it’s some kind of knot, but she’s taking her sweet time with it, a little like she’s distracted by something else.

“It stops the headaches.” She says, out of fucking nowhere, and she sets the toaster down abruptly and frowns at the floor instead. “I don’t remember things being this ugly, the last time I could see.”

“So, seeing’s a relatively new thing for you?” He asks, because he could have _sworn_ she was blind when he’d first opened the door to her, but now she’s talking like she isn’t but was once? But she could see before she was blind, too, and wow, yeah, it’s a good thing the coffee machine is still chugging along.

“Cooladult, if this were anything like _seeing_ , I wouldn’t be so angry about it!” She snaps, and her hands are fisted though she keeps herself still. “How do people with vision get anything done? Everything is so ugly and boring when it’s limited to a three-dimensional field! But with the scarf, at least the headaches are gone.”

He doesn’t really know what to say to that. It seems a lot like there’s some stuff there that she needs someone who’s more familiar with her issues to address, and Dave’s not really that guy. He’s got no idea who she is or where she’s coming from, only that she’s upset and he thinks she’s probably not separating him from his younger, alternate self as well as she should be, right now.

Barely even half-of-a-second after he thinks that, she sighs out through her nose, long and hard, and then grins at him again.

“You’re just as emotionally constipated as Dave, which means I can probably trust you. Don’t make me regret it, or else I’ll make _you_ regret it.” She shoulders past him, and he lets her, mostly because he still has no idea what the hell just happened here. He turns and watches her join the group on the couch, and then turns back to the coffee machine just in time to realize that it’s done brewing.

He ends up making more than one pot, but he’s only on his second cup when he hears the deeper voice of alterDirk filter through the low chatter of the kids and their early morning cartoons. He’s already got a second cup of coffee poured by the time Dirk makes it into the kitchen, because occasionally, the urge to be considerate can strike him. And if he needed coffee this morning, he has no doubt that alterDirk will need it, too.

The other man’s got his cell phone tucked between his shoulder and his ear, and unlike Dave he’s wandered out in the clothes he’d slept in (which are the clothes he’d worn yesterday, because he’s a fucking slob) and without bothering to shave. The sleep still looks so thick in his expression that he thinks alterDirk must be talking to Crocker, because that’s the only person he can feasibly see him not throwing the phone across the room for. Then again, if it is Crocker, there aren’t _nearly_ enough sexual innuendos coming out of his mouth.

His own phone vibrates again and he ends up balancing it on his thigh as he checks it. It’s weird, how he’s a little disappointed it’s not Joe again, but it is Rose and a message from her is always a little foreboding. She just can’t chill it with her cryptic bullshit.

**\-- teacupTautology [TT] began pestering tellurianGladiator [TG] at 9:47 --**

TT: It’s not that I think that my daughter exceeds or excels more than the other children do,  
TT: But let’s just say that I find I’m very fond of her.  
TG: that wasnt even the slightest bit transparent  
TT: Oh, good. You know how I worry so, when people perceive my sincerity with things like understandable motherly sentiment.  
TG: i feel like thats probably a jab at me but guess what  
TT: Please, regale me with this mysterious ‘what’.  
TG: jokes on you i hugged the shit out of my kids  
TT: It’s so nice to finally see you coming out of your shell.  
TT: I feel like we’ve made some real progress here.  
TT: Now, if you’ll just tell me when you’d like to discuss a certain Joe Egbert...

**\-- tellurianGladiator [TG] stopped pestering teacupTautology [TT] at 9:53 --**

TT: David Strider, you giant child.

**\-- tellurianGladiator [TG] blocked teacupTautology [TT] \--**

It really bugs him that she knows about Joe, somehow, and it bugs him even more that she thinks she has any idea of what he feels about the Joe Situation. Which is nothing, because there is no Joe Situation. She’s got him so paranoid he’s making shit up, now.

“Looks like the Egbert kids and some trolls popped up over at the Egbert place this morning.” AlterDirk says, and Dave looks up to notice he’s hung his own phone up and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Yeah, Rose says hers showed up, too, and there’s a couple of trolls that appeared over in Boston.”

“Boston?” The older blonde man repeats, and Dave gives a nonchalant shrug.

“I know some people out that way.”

“How do _you_ know people in Boston?” Yeah, that’s definitely skepticism in his voice, but Dave’s prepared for that, too. He just shrugs again, and answers by not answering at all. Fucking foolproof. Alter Dirk frowns at him, but apparently decides it’s too early to be worth it and goes back to drinking his own coffee. “Yeah, whatever. I was thinking, we need to get these kids some clothes. None of Dave’s old clothes will fit any of them, now, and it’s not like I mind chica rocking out my Hawaiian shirts, but I’d like my wardrobe back.”

Dave imagines a cave full of Hawaiian shirts and finds that he’s not even surprised that Dirk Sr. is protective of that trash. He has strange priorities.

“But honey,” Dave interjects, false sugar in his voice, “don’t you think the kids would look just darling in outfits you made? You’re so talented at sewing, after all.”

Dirk doesn’t even bat of fucking eyelash before he responds, but they’ve been going back-and-forth like this since they both woke up in this world, so Dave sort of expected the easy rebuttal.

“Sure, pumpkin, but I’m not about to risk carpal tunnel just to keep up with the wardrobe of five teenagers. Gather round, pipsqueaks,” He calls towards the futon, “We’re planning a mall trip.”

It turns out that the eldest member of the Strider Clan is absolutely not fucking around when he claims they’re ‘planning’ a mall trip. He’s got a fucking _itinerary_ , but the schedule is loose and iffy. On his itinerary are the list of everything they’re going to need for their new herd of gross teenagers and the order in which they’ll tackle it all (though ‘idk get lunch somewhere’ is scribbled vaguely off in the margin). 

They scour the entire fucking apartment until they find a hat that Bro is willing to part with - it’s an old ski hat, and they cut holes into it and spend fifteen minutes maneuvering over bulltroll’s horns. Sharktooth has her own hood made to look like some kind of lizardy dragon thing, and it does a good enough job hiding her horns that they don’t have to try and figure something out. As far as disguises go, they’re pretty shitty and Dave doubts how many people are going to believe orange bullhorns are a trend, but...it’s what they have.

There’s really no hiding their skintone - make up might work, but no one in the house owns any, so they can only put their faith in the human ability to completely miss the fucking obvious. They’re skin isn’t... _too_ grey, really, and how long did the world completley miss the fact that Better Crocker was an alien? They'll be fine.

Everyone gets ushered out, then, because the mornings almost over and they’ve got a lot of shit to get done; Hal and Dirk hang back a moment, but Dave only spares them a glance and impatiently knocks on the doorframe as he goes through it, to remind them that they don’t have a lot of time to be screwing around if they wanna get this shit over with today.

They slide into the fucking disaster of a minivan not two minutes after he claims the passenger seat, and after a brief squabble from all of the kids about who’s sitting where, they start their adventure.

For a mall in Houston, Dave has to admit that it’s not really as crowded as he expected it would be. He doesn’t know if it’s a pre-lunch lull or if it’s just not a day that people want to go to the mall, but whatever it is, he’s kind of glad for it. He wouldn’t claim he’s a shut-in, or anything, but there’s only so much amusement he can pretend to find in the drooling masses, and he suspects his patience will be even thinner while he’s supposed to be helping wrangle in a handful of teenagers, two of which are aliens and one of which is a robot.

Terezi and Tavros seem interested in absolutely everything they pass, but luckily they’re happy to harass a bored, vaguely irritated mini-Dave about it. Hal and Dirk are quiet, still hanging back, but he thinks they must be arguing. Hal keeps muttering at Dirk, who answers him snappishly, but still quietly enough that Dave has no clue what he’s saying.

Because she’s a girl and they’re all the kind of assholes who assume that means she’ll take forever shopping for clothes, they decided to get Terezi’s portion out of the way first. It’s awkward watching Bro try to explain sizing to her, especially for bras (Hal pipes up to add his two cents of tips, and Dave officially has no idea how either of them know anything about women’s underwear), but once she’s got it down, she’s happy enough to go looking through the clothes for things to wear.

It takes her approximately ten minutes to come to the front desk with a bundle of assorted things and announce that she’s done. She looks kind of shifty, but Dave discovers why when Tavros nudges her and points at something.

“Terezi....that’s azure.”

“Shoosh! It’s not like they have a whole lot of hemospectrum appropriate color options.” She snaps, sounding cranky and guilty all at once. Yep. That totally clears things up. Dave pays with the card Bro handed to him, and they move the fuck on.

Bro doesn’t have any kind of interest in what the kids wear or pick out, so he sort of stands at the edge of every store they visit and waits until it’s time to pay at each place, but years of Hollywood Fashion has Dave absently browsing as the flock runs wild; it’s nice to see that even in alternate universes, the youth of America has shitty taste in fashion.

Still, it’s incredibly boring, because they all take twenty times longer than Terezi did to pick out their clothes, and she’s resorted to swinging between Dave and Tavros and making horrible suggestions - at one point, Dave and Tavros argue about a Legend of Zelda shirt, but Trophyhorns insists it’s obviously a ‘Pupa Pan’ shirt, with the character in green and the fairy and Dave gives up about halfway through and sulks off to another part of the store. Hal stalks Dirk around the store, half-criticizing Dirk’s lack of a fashion sense but not exactly picking anything out for himself, either.

Dave eventually finds himself back over by Bro at the front of the store, collapsing in a seat next to him with a huff of air.

“You get the feeling we’re gonna be here for awhile?” He asks, and Dirk grunts in agreement - he looks pensive, but Dave doesn’t push. Dirk’s got a way of being bluntly honest with what’s on his mind, so he has no doubt he’ll hear about it, sooner or later.

“Probably gonna have to do this one more time.” He finally says, and Dave frowns and turns his gaze to him in confusion. Dirk looks vaguely uneasy and that's out of character enough to completely snag Dave's attention. “I mentioned I was in the game for a bit, right? And the other Dave, the one with wings? I dunno, he just - Hal’s here, right? And I keep thinking, ‘why not him, too?’. I don’t know why he didn’t come with the rest, but it keeps nagging at me.” He gets the implication, of course - in their language, ‘nagging’ means ‘instinct’, and one never doubts the ‘Strider instinct’. On the one hand, the last thing they need is a third Dave - on the other, who really gives a shit what his name is, he’s a Strider so he’s theirs. So, he settles for the only thing he can really think to say with this new revelation.

“Guess we’re gonna need a bigger place after all.” Dirk snorts.

“I was gonna talk to the landlord today, anyway. There’s another apartment ‘cross the hall to ours that’s been empty for years, and I figure we can make it work somehow.”

“Seems legit, though it kinda seems like it’d be more expensive to rent two places instead of getting somewhere bigger.”

“Dude, don’t even - you know how much money I pull in?” As far as he’s aware, Dirk’s main source of income is the occasional DJ set and that creepy ass website he runs, and he’s not actually sure he wants to know just how much he makes off of that.

“Why the hell is everything in the apartment such shit, then?” Bro shrugs.

“Works, doesn’t it? Never really saw the point in buying new shit when the old shit was just as functional.” Dave rolls his eyes behind his shades and decides he’s just going to stealthily replace everything in the apartment without asking, from now on.

“Whatever. How about we stop by the food court after this store? I’m not exactly interested in finding out if teenagers resort to cannibalism when they’re hungry, and I have the feeling this is gonna take even longer than we originally thought.” By the time they’ve left the store, it’s well into the lunch hour and the food court’s about as busy as he’d expected it would be. As one entity, they all head for the first knock-off Chinese food stall they see and he assumes the Trolls follow along because they haven’t really had time to form their own opinion on human food, yet.

Dave’s standing in the back of the group, though, and little Dirk is standing next to him - from what he’d seen last night, the kid’s probably the darkest of all of them. He assumes he’s tanned because of all that time spent literally living on an ocean, but at the moment he looks just as pale as the rest of them; there’s a faint sheen on his skin like he’s been sweating, but he’s fairly stoic looking. He hesitates a moment, but he’s not going to get any answers if he doesn’t ask.

“You alright there, kiddo?” Dirk turns towards him, halfway, and it takes a moment before he exhales in a way that sounds forced and gives a curt nod.

“Yeah, I’m cool.” Dave’s not so sure he believes that. Mostly because he didn’t give up some kind of ridiculous comparison or example of how fine he was, and his answer is too short to be sincere or even ironically insincere and that’s the sort of alarm bell that signals an emergency, most of the time. Dirk keeps his mouth closed and his lips pulled tight, though, and says nothing else.

Now that Dave takes the time to really look at him, though, he’s noticing all the things that are definitely _not_ alright with him. His shoulders are too tight, almost like he’s hunching just imperceptibly, and something about his face looks uneasy. His hands are stuffed into his pockets, but he can tell that they’re fisted. He thinks about waking up this morning to kids getting first aid, and thinks maybe he shouldn’t have let it go so easily - what if Dirk’s got some kind of infection or internal wound or something? He doesn’t really look fevered or even in pain, though, just faintly ill.

“Look...I know you don’t really know me, and you probably don’t give a shit about my opinion, but -” He cuts himself off, because Dirk shifts at those words and gives a sharp shake of his head. For a moment, the stoicism cracks and leaves a bewildered and uncomfortable teenager in it’s place, but all the Dirks seem good at quickly pulling the wool back over and that glimpse is gone just as quickly.

“That’s not - you’re -...” Dirk’s struggling with his words, now, apparently unable to figure out what it is he wants to say, and somehow his hands find themselves in his hair and he tugs at it, sharply. “Fuck, I can’t even - such a fucking -” He makes a strangled noise of...frustration or despair, Dave can’t honestly tell at this point. He’s definitely worried, though - this is so out of character it’s concerning, and he’s turned to fully face the kid and give him his full attention. The other’s have started noticing at this point, and Hal’s face does something interesting that Dave will totally think about later, when they don’t have some kind of impending Strider Crisis on their hands.

Hal reaches out for Dirk’s shoulder, like they don’t actually argue seventy-five percent of the time, but Dirk just flinches back from the touch - he knocks into some guy in the line next to theirs, and Dave watches as his shoulders somehow go tenser than before. He looks five seconds away from darting or snapping or both, and Dave’s got no idea what the fuck to do. Dirk doesn’t look at him when he says his name, and all he can do is watch as the kid’s face starts filling with something far too similar to disgust (at them? at himself? Dave can’t even tell at this point) as he frowns at his feet

Hal elbows him, sharply, and says, “Dude, what are you standing there like a moron for? Get him outside to the car. I’ll grab us three lunch, but he needs out, like, twenty minutes ago.”

For all that Dave has no idea what’s going on, it seems like sound advice. Dirk tries to pull away from him again when he reaches out, though, so he changes tactics from grabbing to nudging, and eventually they get out of the crowd of the food court and into fresh air.

Dirk’s gripping his own elbows now, arms crossed and knuckles white, and as soon as the minivan is in sight he speeds up and breaks away from Dave, practically throwing himself into the farthest back seat. He sounds like he’s having an asthma attack, but he’s pretty sure the kid doesn’t have that. It seems like it’d be something he’d mention, and it’s not wheezy anyway, just heavy and uneven.

He’s got no idea what’s going on, and he wishes that Rose were here, and even (a little hysterically) that he was Rose, because she probably doesn’t have to deal with this shit, and if she does, at least she probably knows how to handle it. As it is, he just feels like an asshole, standing around and gaping uselessly at the kid.

Dave’s got no idea what to do with his hands and he doesn’t want to crowd the kid anyway, so he stands awkwardly next to the open door and watches the kid kind of...curl into himself without actually moving. It’s all in his posture, or something, but he looks...defensive and legitimately upset. Great. It’s technically the first day he’s even had him around and he’s already broken his little brother.

“...You gonna be okay?” He finally asks.

“Fuck off, I’m fine, I’m handling it, I can fucking handle it myself.” He says it to the back of the seat in front of him, rather than to Dave, but even if it weren’t for that it’s pretty obvious that he’s not fine and he’s definitely not handling it. He’s sweating still, but he looks like he’d be cool and clammy to the touch. A moment passes before he lurches and says, “I’m gonna fucking hurl.” 

He only dry heaves a bit, though, which is only half as reassuring as it could be. At least there won't be a physical mess to clean up later.

He’s fucking useless at this.

“Here,” A voice says. Dave only has a moment to turn towards it before Hal is shoving a bag of food and the car keys in his hands, and then climbing into the back with Dirk. He watches as one blonde forcefully drags the other into a one-armed hug, as Dirk lashes out at Hal in retaliation, and as Hal ignores all of that and starts muttering to Dirk again in a tone that Dave’s too far away to hear. After a moment, Hal looks up, “They’re gonna keep shopping while we take him home, and then we’re gonna come back.”

“Fuck off, didn’t I already say I was fine? I’ll just wait out here.”

“Dude, you are so fucking incapable of making decisions for yourself right now that it’s pathetic, so why don’t you shut up before you embarrass the both of us?”

The drive home passes in flashes for him, torn between trying to check on Dirk and Hal in the backseat and doing his best not to crash as he drives - Hal’s got down a system so Dirk’s breathing right, but it’s forced and there’s little hiccups here and there where he forgets to focus. He keeps saying shit that doesn’t make any sense to Dave, things that make Hal frown, and now and again he says something about being a ‘fucking embarrassment’ that Dave’s afraid to acknowledge, because he’s worryingly sure of where _that’s_ coming from.

They wrangle him inside, opting to take the elevator that is kind enough to work for them, for once. Even once they’re home, though, it takes another thirty minutes before whatever’s happening to Dirk stops, and even then it’s less that he’s calmed down and more than he’s worn himself out. It ends up that he falls asleep on the futon while he’s trying to pretend he’s fine, and as they head back out to the van, Dave finally gives in.

“What the hell was that.” Hal frowns at him, then looks away.

“Fuck if I know. My guess is that they’re panic attacks - seems pretty consistently like that.” A...panic attack? He’s not new to them - he’s worked with plenty of high-strung actors and actresses, but their ‘panic attacks’ had been nothing compared to that - that had been terrifying on a level that Dave had never known he could acknowledge before, and it’s not something he ever wants to see again. Which makes something about what Hal’s said even more worrying.

“Consistently?” He repeats, and Hal looks like he’s said something he wishes he wouldn’t have. He flops down into the passenger seat and crosses his arms like any other teenage boy would.

“He had one yesterday. It’s why we were so late - he freaked out so we ducked into an alley until it passed”

“What caused it?” Hal just looks frustrated and exasperated at that question, though, and Dave tries to calm himself down, because he’s still riding on some of kind of adrenaline high, and he knows he sounds like he’s accusing Hal of something they both know he’s not guilty of.

“How should I know? Just because I look human doesn’t mean I am, I’ve got no idea how his head works when he gets like this. Yesterday I thought it was because of the crowds, but nothing he was whining about today had anything to do with that.”

Dave groans and runs his hand over his face. He really needs to talk to Rose, but he’s too strung out and tired to deal with her bullshit just yet.

Fuck.

He can’t think straight, so he sends Hal off to shop with the others when they get there, and just snags a seat for himself in the food court. He nurses a coffee for awhile, and then, before he really considers what he’s doing, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and sends a text to the other kid he’s fucked up, because what the hell else is he supposed to do?

TG: sup  
TG: howre you holding up  
EB: well enough. just doing some research on the interweb.  
EB: did you know that there’s a dame in china with honest to god devil horns?

Dave pauses at that, reads it again in a moment of confusion before he gives a snort of helpless laughter. That’s just great - the _last_ thing they need is Joe and Jade discovering that aliens are real because Joe’s concerned for the health of his house-guests. Researching his guests is the only reason Dave can think why Joe’d be researching things like that.

TG: woah color me surprised  
TG: ladies and gents today is a day to mark on your calenders  
TG: the day that joe jiminy cricket egbert had a random fact that the dave strider didnt already know  
TG: youre becoming a downright scholar man  
TG: gonna have to give you all kinds of awards now  
TG: maybe even a nobel prize  
EB: hehe  
EB: just you wait, mr. strider. i will astound you with my learned notions.  
EB: someday, i might even reveal the secrets of jellyfish that i have just found.  
EB: though, to be honest, those jellyfish are terrifying creatures.

...No, he’s got no idea why he’s researching jellyfish. Dave decides to let it go as just one of those things that happens when you leave Joe unsupervised on the internet.

TG: most terrifying thing ive ever seen definitely  
TG: nothing has ever even slightly come close  
TG: i have seen the fall of empires and still  
TG: i dont think i could take a jellyfish joe  
TG: youre nerd ways will have to save us all  
EB: land sakes, let’s hope it doesn’t come down to that.  
EB: so, what are you up to? having a fun time with your flock of ruffians? mine are still resting.  
TG: oh yeah were having a ball  
TG: we went out shopping like a flock of tools  
TG: and then im pretty sure that dirk nearly suffocated from a panic attack and that im the shittiest parent in the universe  
TG: it was great you should have seen it  
TG: the crowd was in awe of my ineptitude for miles  
TG: dave strider  
TG: the man who cant see the painfully obvious bulldozer coming until its bashing itself into his face  
TG: you know  
TG: in the interest of honesty and all that

He had really not realized he was going to be that honest until he’d already sent it, and now he can’t take it back even though he wishes he could. Joe’s got his own shit to deal with and he doesn’t need Dave piling even more onto him. Dave’s a damn adult, he should be able to handle his own fuck-ups like a damn pro by now.

TG: actually  
TG: can we just forget that i was that candid and pretend that my day really was just fanfuckingtastic  
TG: id rather keep the fact that i cant parent to literally save a life to myself  
EB: dave.  
EB: settle down a moment and breathe.  
EB: it’s going to be okay. dirk is going to be okay and you are not a terrible parent. sometimes panic attacks happen and i’m sure it’s not your fault.  
EB: he was probably grateful you were there.  
EB: and no, not dropping it. sorry, that boat has sailed. you’re in for the full egbert comforting treatment now, buddy.

Great.

But Joe’s left the door open and Dave’s one of those shitty people that can’t resist an invite no matter how badly he’s going to feel about it later.

TG: im pretty sure that he doesnt give a shit about my opinion actually  
TG: not that i would blame him  
TG: and it lasted like fourty five goddamn minutes so im not so sure hes going to be okay either  
TG: maybe its not my fault but i shouldve seen it coming  
TG: i didnt even notice it happening until it was too late  
TG: i didnt even do anything to help once it did  
TG: just freaked out a lot and hal did most of the work  
TG: hals his twin just in case you havent gotten them all separated in your head yet  
TG: i probably shouldnt be bothering you with this shit  
TG: youve got problems of your own  
EB: you’re in luck. i cleared out my entire busy schedule today.  
EB: attacks can be pretty long. one of my bandmates has them a lot. we do what we can for him but it can get a little frightening sometimes.  
EB: dirk is going to be fine. he might be embarrassed, but that’s when you tell him everything is okay. i’m giving you direct advice so you have some handrails. jade tells me that’s important.  
EB: its okay that you were disturbed, dave.  
EB: the important thing is that he got helped and that its over now, and maybe next time you can be more help to him.

Dave rereads those words a couple of times, actually, because they soothe something in him. Even still, though, the unease lingers and he hems and haws over how he should reply for a good ten or fifteen minutes. Once again, he’s being forthcoming when he’s not sure he should be - Joe’s just a kid, too, Dave shouldn’t be dumping all of this on him.

TG: hal says it happened yesterday too  
TG: thats two panic attacks in as many days  
TG: and what if hes had more i dont know about  
TG: i dont even know what caused them so theres nothing i can do to fix it or stop it from happening  
EB: well, you might just have to ask him. or ask hal, since they seem so close, if he feels comfortable telling you.  
EB: if dirk’s been hiding them, he’s probably embarrassed. waylon was for a long time before he realized we weren’t going to just abandon him for it.  
EB: either way, you should talk to him.  
EB: he might have been afraid of losing your esteem by having them, so he didn’t tell you. i know i’d have never told my father something like that. worse, he might think it’s somehow his fault.  
EB: it definitely isn’t and it’s not yours either.

Out of the two of them, he’s not actually sure which might be more willing to talk to him about it. He gets the feeling that Joe’s right, though; Dirk’s going to be taciturn about it and he’s not sure the kid trusts him enough to be honest, if he pushes. But if Dirk does think it’s his fault...well, Dave’s pretty sure it’s not. And he can’t let him keep thinking that.

TG: im not sure either of them would tell me if i asked but  
TG: i guess youre right  
TG: im gonna have to talk to dirk at least  
TG: probably when he wakes up and i get back home again  
TG: if he has them a lot and theyre always that bad were gonna have to work something out with school when they start it next year  
TG: fuck should i take him to a doctor  
TG: i have no idea what the fuck im supposed to do  
TG: and i still feel hella bad for dumping all of this on you  
TG: i know you havent had the easiest day either  
EB: i don’t mind, dave. actually, it’s nice to be concentrating on someone else’s problems for a little while. besides, maybe i like being some help to you.  
EB: or i’m just enamored by your adorable family.  
EB: sorry, dave. i hate to break it to you this way, but i only want you for your kids.  
EB: i know, it’s a terrible truth, but you’re strong enough to hear it now.  
EB: honestly, though, it really is okay.  
TG: man if you say so

He’s not really sure he believes that. Joe seems like the type to insist he’s find for the sake of others, especially when he’s not actually fine with something. Still. It’s reassuring any way he looks at it, so he feels okay with taking the hand-out humor and running with it. He’s talked about his problems like Joe wanted to and now they can both pretend that everything is rainbows and butterflies for a bit.

TG: if thats what pedals your bike far be it from me to judge  
TG: also its okay i forgive you  
TG: i only want me for my adorable kids too  
TG: dweeb  
TG: still thats a harsh thing to just put on the plate  
TG: maybe im gonna have to drown myself in a vat of chocolate  
TG: cry a little as i watch gone with the wind on repeat  
TG: my delicate girl feelings have been crushed  
TG: the truth is joe  
TG: i was never going to be strong enough to hear you say that  
TG: so thanks for ruining my heart forever  
EB: one day your prince will come, dave.  
EB: i hear they like to sweep up broken hearted maidens such as yourself and carry them off into the sunset.  
EB: don’t worry about the boys. i will cusset them to my breast for the rest of my days, teach them the ways of manliness, and dutifully educate them in the matters of proper mustaches.  
TG: joe  
TG: i want you to take a minute  
TG: and imagine any of these kids with a fucking mustache  
TG: and if you tell me that you dont immediately spit out your lungs from laughing so hard  
TG: i will know you for the horrible nasty liar you are  
TG: i cant let a nasty liar raise my adorable babies while im off living the good ol royal life with prince charming  
EB: i never said a proper mustache would be fitting to any of them, but even jade has one she puts on when the occasion calls for it.  
EB: a mustache can be a powerful tool when used correctly!  
EB: so don’t worry. your adorable babies are safe with me.  
TG: fine  
TG: just remember that theyre delicate like fine china  
TG: too much manly mustache and they might bruise  
TG: cant be having bruised striders joe  
TG: cant do it  
TG: not today  
EB: are the stars in the wrong position? do you want me to move the stars, dave? because i can.  
EB: don’t worry. i understand striders are the prettiest princesses.  
EB: i would never treat them with anything but gentlemanly care.  
TG: i dont know joe  
TG: i wouldnt want to bring the wrath of the gods upon me  
TG: pretty sure these kids could take you in a fight if you werent a perfect gentleman anyway  
TG: but its nice to see that someone finally recognizes the purity of the nobility in us  
TG: its so tedious to be mistaken as common rabble  
EB: far be it for me to keep you from your just recognition, your highness.

He keeps expecting Joe to send more messages after that, but it takes him awhile before he does. Dave’s just about to type out his own reply, when another text finally comes through - then it’s back to semi-seriousness, but that’s fine. Joe needs advice and Dave will happily give him whatever advice he has to spare.

EB: sorry, i thought one of the dames woke up for a moment and needed to check. they’re still out.  
EB: dave, it’s very strange to think of them being called trolls. who on earth thinks troll is a good name for themselves?  
TG: its cool  
TG: hah yeah its pretty awkward  
TG: i think sometimes they call themselves alternians or whatever  
TG: but for the most part the ones im with seem pretty okay with the word troll  
TG: like its some kind of badge of pride  
TG: if it bothers you though you could probably just call them by their names  
TG: like people dont usually refer to the people theyre around by what race they are  
TG: i think thats pretty much the same thing  
EB: you’re right, i’m being insensitive. hopefully, i won’t accidentally offend them. aradia was very friendly and porrim seemed pleasant.  
EB: lord knows i’m not one to judge anyway.  
EB: are the ones with you nice?

Last year, around this relative time, if someone had asked him to describe Trolls, ‘nice’ would have been the farthest word from his mind. Still. These kids aren’t bad for as little as he knows of them, and they’re certainly not evil.

TG: im sure youre practically a saint around them so dont worry so much  
TG: and theyre okay as far as i can tell  
TG: trust me i wasnt so sure at first either  
TG: got some personal baggage attached to trolls in general  
TG: but theyre harmless enough  
TG: sharktooth is kind of weird and she keeps licking things but shes alright  
TG: trophyhorns is pretty shy i guess i havent gotten the chance to really talk to him yet  
TG: things have been kind of hectic over here  
EB: i can imagine.  
EB: i hope it settles down for you soon.  
EB: in the meantime, are you feeling better now?

Dave pauses, when he realizes what the answer to that question actually is.

TG: actually yeah  
TG: weird  
TG: guess i just needed time to calm down  
TG: and of course everyones favorite gentlemanly distraction  
TG: mostly just tired  
TG: im so done with today i dont think i could convince a feral dog to eat it  
TG: thanks for lending your ear and shit  
EB: anytime. and i mean that. it’s the least i can do.  
EB: just talk to dirk once he wakes up and be supportive. you’ll both get through this just fine.  
EB: i have to go now. my dames really are awake this time.  
TG: yeah  
TG: youll be okay too  
TG: good luck  
TG: ill talk to you later  
EB: i will hold you to that.  
EB: good bye

Dave’s tired, but he feels lighter than he did before he talked to Joe. He still feels guilty for dumping all that shit on the poor kid, especially after their conversation this morning about the hard time Joe’s having with things. It’s not the best situation for either of them, honestly, but at least the kid has a good head on his shoulders.

He ain’t half bad with advice, either. He glances at the phone on his screen even though he doesn’t need to - there’s probably another hour or so still, until the rest of them are done shopping, and while he would like nothing more than to go home and have that talk with Dirk, he settles into the table for the long haul. He can figure out what he’s supposed to say while he waits, and maybe figure out how to go back to looking like he’s got a handle on things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loxie here! I'd just like to claim full responsibility for the ass-long wait for this chapter. It kicked my ass and I'm one of those people that loses inspiration with something when I'm frustrated and nervous about it. On the up-and-up, this chapter is like 9k and hopefully that's a bit of an apology.


	6. Chapter 6

The trolls sleep for most of the day. Joe and Jade rouse them once to put some food in their bellies, but then they drop again. With the free time, Joe could have called Jeff again, gotten some more info, maybe even texted Dave, but he doesn’t. Instead, he sits with Jade on the couch while she searches on the interweb for how blood could possibly be green. Joe and technology don’t get along very well. He acknowledges that the interweb must be useful but peering over Jade’s shoulder, he’s no closer to figuring it out than he was before he knew it existed. He’s happy enough to chat with her about it though, and at least he manages his phone most of the time.

“Copper?” Joe asks as he gives her a confused glance. “I mean, ours tastes coppery enough, but-”

“No, no, not like ours,” Jade says patiently as she skims the article she’s reading lightning fast. “But, um, yes, copper could do it. Or, rather, a copper based delivery system, proteins... I mean, there’s precedent for it in some invertebrate species, green and blue blood...Ahh, I don’t know enough about biology… Maybe I should take a basic class next semester...”

As Jade putters through, Joe imagines blue blood. He knows at least his veins are blue, or look it, but he’s never going to think of blood as anything but red for real, and trying to replace the notion makes his head hurt. Blue is no less disturbing than green, but at least he’s seen green. And that had been very weird. He really hopes Porrim doesn’t get hurt again, aside from the more obvious reasons.

“Oh, neat,” comes a cheerful interruption to his introspection. “It _can_ happen to humans! Rarely and it’s not a _good_ thing, but...”

“Are you serious?” Joe rubs between his eyes. “That is so strange.”

“No stranger than some of your books.”

“Those are fantasies.”

“ _Science_ fantasy, dummy. How many things in your books have come true now?”

Joe gives her a dirty look. “Stop crabbing it.”

Jade just beams right back a moment before turning to her computer again.

“Still, if this is what’s wrong with Porrim’s blood, we need to get her to a doctor pretty quick!” Jade chewed at her lip with worry. “It could be a sign of an overdose since it happens most often with people taking certain prescriptions… There are only a couple things that could cause this. Oh no, it’s really not polite to ask her if she has a long term condition!”

Nodding agreement, Joe rakes a hand through his hair and tries to think of some way to breach it gently, but... Well. He’s not exactly well versed in being tactful or delicate. He thinks back to the morning. “...She was kind of cold, too. Her skin, I mean.”

That doesn’t comfort either of them but Jade resolutely starts some more research on possibly hypothermia or anything else that might be involved in a lower body temperature. She’s saving information steadily; it’s going to be hundreds of pages long by the time she’s finished. After a few Stooges episodes, they’d looked into horns, skin discoloration, and anything else odd they’d noticed about their guests. The grouping of all the strange traits baffle the both of them. From what little they can figure out from the articles, these “trolls” either lost _badly_ at the genetic lottery or had to be inbred as all get out.

Mid afternoon, Joe’s phone buzzes. He wonders if texting is going to become a common thing between him and Dave after he recognizes the sender, but quickly his curiosity drops into worry because Dave is really, _really_ not okay.

“Joe?” Jade gives him a sideways glance, her eyes flitting between his face and his phone.

“It’s Dave. One of his kids had a hard time today.” Which just cuts Joe to the quick because panic is never a fun thing to deal with, on either side.

“Is he okay now?”

“Dirk? Yeah, they got him calmed down. Had a panic attack.”

Jade nods with understanding. “Poor thing. Is Dave okay?”

“Seems shaken.”

After a moment, Jade slides over and presses against Joe’s side, looking over his shoulder. The two of them figure through the rest of the conversation, debating answers and advice between them before funneling it back to their strange friend. By the time they finish he seems in better spirits and Joe feels a bit better himself. He wishes there were something more he could do for those kids, but the trolls are awake and its time to get their noses to the manger.

The trolls are ravenously hungry but polite. As she eats, Aradia keeps looking at him and Jade like she can see _into_ them, or at least part of them. It’s… disconcerting, to say the least. But she’s so friendly, Joe feels bad about thinking that way. He finds Aradia staring at him again as Porrim and Jade strike up a conversation about their respective tattoos, the meanings, and future plans for more. Joe meets Aradia’s eyes and lifts a brow but she only smiles, like being caught at it doesn’t bother her in the least.

Might as well bite the bullet. “...You look like you’ve got a question holed up in that skull of yours, kiddo.”

“Not really a question,” she replies cheerfully. “It’s just that I didn’t think I’d see a timeline as loopy as yours outside of the game!”

Joe has no idea how to even begin to respond to that. He stares at her, blinking owlishly. Game? A loopy timeline? What- He straightens up in his seat. “What do you see?”

“Well, not really _see_ , but I can sense things. It’s very twisted up, at least in relation to ours.” She scoops a couple noodles onto her fork. “You avoided so many dead ends! The bubbles would have been filled up with your doomed selves.”

He… what? She says it like he’s supposed to be proud or comforted but the pit of his stomach falls instead. Had… Had he been supposed to _die?_ If he had…

Dave’d saved him. Joe stares at her without really seeing anything. Was that why Dave kept showing up? To save him? Keep him alive?

“I wasn’t supposed to survive,” he murmurs with shock and Aradia reaches over to pat his hand.

“Don’t think about it like that. You’re the alpha of your timeline!” she says sweetly, her gaze soft and bright. Somehow, it’s not as comforting as it should be but she’s trying and he appreciates that. Except suddenly, the entire room feels way, way too small. He needs air. He needs space. He needs-

Jade’s fingers curl on his shoulder without pausing her own conversation and he immediately feels grounded again. Joe lets out the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He gives himself a moment as his heart slows again and then looks back to Aradia. The look on her face is thoughtful as her eyes dart between him and Jade, and then it seems she realizes something that pleases her deeply. Joe doesn’t have a clue what it could be.

All right. All right, so. Dave saved him. Several times, maybe. Why didn’t he _say_ something- why would he have? Joe doubts he’d have believed anything about possible futures before he’d been taken to one. Wow. Joe blinks a little at his plate. He’s not sure just what he feels about this revelation, but it’s pretty damn clear that he owes Dave a lot more than he thought.

Aradia is happy enough to let things drop as she cheerfully stuffs her face so Joe takes the time he’s been given to let his thoughts turn over in his head. Jade and Porrim’s voices flow in and out of his attention as their topics flow in and out. He catches the word “hemotype” and that’s what drags him out of his own head.

“-whole spectrum of colors,” Porrim is explaining with a shrug of her shoulder. “Aradia’s rather low on it, rust blooded, while I’m mid ranged jade.”

“And this is normal?” Jade asks dubiously, but her eyes are intensely focused.

“Oh yes, and each color has a few quirks, but all perfectly natural.” Porrim folds her arms over her chest, long nails tapping lightly against her gray skin. “We’re well used to it.”

“Is that why your body temperature is so low?”

Porrim blinks a little. “I suppose. It isn’t anything I’ve put much thought into. I’ve had other battles to fight, you understand.”

“That reminds me…” Jade leans back against the kitchen island, her expression thoughtful. “Why did the two of you come here? We understand that you were involved in some mess with one of Joe’s relatives, but-”

“I told myself,” Aradia pipes up past a mouthful of pancake.

Joe lifts a brow. “You what?”

“My future self popped back to tell me.” Aradia wipes her mouth and grins at Joe’s bewilderment. “She thought very highly of you both, so I knew we could trust you.”

Future self… Another time traveler? Joe’s heart ramps up again and before he can stop himself, he’s blurting out, “Since you- Do you know Dave Strider?”

“Of course!” Even Jade perks up at the announcement but Aradia’s brightness doesn’t change a bit. “We played the game together, after all. Time aspects have to stick together. Them’s the rules.”

The game again. Joe frowns, figuring through her words as best he can. He’s starting to think he’s going to be pretty sick of hearing about this game by the end of it, if the outcome had everyone so banged up-

He’s pulled out his phone and cued up the pester app before he realizes it, but then he stops. There’s no reason to check in with Dave. He was fine this morning and he’s probably fine now, and it’s not as if he needs Joe worrying over him like a mother hen. Heck, he’s probably had enough of Joe’s babbling for one day already. Chewing a bit at the inside of his mouth, Joe switches the phone off again and slips it back into his pocket. He’d just have to trust that Dave was all right.

But that makes him wonder. Dave had said he wasn’t involved in the John thing, which seems to be the game thing, but this girl knew him… Ngh. There’s too much he doesn’t know and he can’t even figure out the right questions to ask.

Without a clear direction to go, he lets things drop. The visitors seem a lot better after sleep and a meal and spend most of the evening trying to reconnect with the rest of their group. Joe gets a call from Amos and spends half an hour assuring the man that everything is okay, no, the mob didn’t come after him, and there’s no reason to mount a heroic rescue. It might be his imagination but Amos sounds almost disappointed. Joe assures him he’ll be on time the next night and shoots a message to the band manager to see if she could call off practice a few days while he handled things. Perdita Moreau could be hard headed about time frames, but Joe knows she’ll do what he needs when all is said and done. There’s good reason Joe can count on her.

Jade calls it a night early, since she’s got classes in the morning. Porrim and Aradia aren’t too far behind her, but Joe stays up a while more. He can’t afford to throw off his sleep schedule much, despite how much he likes being awake when it’s actually light outside. Joe plays around on his phone, thinks about texting Dave, and then doesn’t. He thinks about calling Jeff, too, but again ends up deciding not to. It’s not as if he can’t figure this out on his own. He doesn’t need to run to them for rescue when every little weird thing happens…

He’s nearing giving up on keeping his usual bedtime when he hears something from Jade’s bedroom. Getting to his feet, Joe peeks through the door and watches the way her dreams twist up her face as she huddles in the sheets. Jade didn’t have nightmares often and despite how close the two of them had always been, she’d never told him what she dreamed in all the years they’d known one another. Sometimes she’d say a word or two in her sleep but it’s never made much sense. The one time Joe pushed the issue, back when they were still kids, Jade had said that voicing fears gave them power and she never, ever wanted him to face what she knew. The look on her face had been terrifying and he’d never asked again.

Joe pads quietly to the bed and then slips in with her, drawing Jade back against his body. The soft whimper that escapes her breaks his heart, but Joe knows how to soothe her. He murmurs quiet reassurances in her ear as he lets his presence and firm embrace center her spirit. Slowly, Jade begins to relax in his arms as her dreams settle. If he leaves, they’ll just start up again so Joe remains there the rest of the night, finding his sleep with the lulling beat of her heart. He’s glad at least he can do this much for her, even if he feels useless otherwise.

\-----

“Can I make a request?”

Joe looks up and gives his best smile. “I don’t promise anything, but I’ll give it a try.”

The woman grins back, all bright lipstick and perfect white teeth. She leans against the edge of the piano in a way he’s grown to know well. Women these days are a lot more forward than he’s used to, even three years later. Not that the kind of dames he palled around with before were all that modest, but the _Wastes_ is a fairly high end club. The girls here have a different way of showing their interest that isn’t exactly more subtle.

She stays as he plays through the song and he can’t help but throw a little frill into the end that has her grinning wider. She’s got a good smile and if this were a normal night, he’d consider taking her up on the unspoken offer. Wouldn’t be the first time. Before she drifts off again, he’s got her number written on a napkin in his pocket. He might call her sometime, maybe when things at home blow over. It’s nice to think about, anyway.

When it hits the break, he gets up and shakes soreness from his fingers as he heads over to the bar. Waylon already has a glass of water for him that goes down in seconds and gets replaced with a second. He’s an attentive bartender for all that he lacks in nerve and Joe’s careful to slip a couple ones under the bar for thoughtfulness when Waylon isn’t looking.

The guy is more than a little twitchy tonight, but it takes Joe only a sweep of the room to figure out why. He thinks back and yeah, it’s Monday, he should have known she’d be around. Sitting in one of the back booths, a pretty blonde he knows well meets his gaze with an elegant smile and a nod. He gives Wendy an answering grin and turns to watch Waylon fumble a tumbler in his hands that he somehow manages not to drop.

“Did she see?”

“You know, someday you’re going to have to buck up and get over this,” Joe comments as Waylon’s cheeks flare with color. He takes pity though and shifts to stand in front of Waylon, shielding him from the broad’s gaze. “I get that she’s a total bombshell-”

“She’s more than that. She’s _amazing_.” Waylon sets down the tumblr and gestures something incomprehensible with his hands. “She’s like… like… The sun. And the moon. And the _East_ -”

“Pft- you’ve been reading Shakespeare again.”

Waylon wilts a bit and fiddles with a much beloved paperback in his apron. “Maybe a little. I… I never know what to say to her.”

“You could just ask her out,” Joe suggests, leaning his folded arms onto the bar. “Dames like that appreciate a little confidence.”

The look he gets is rueful and incredulous. Then Waylon gets back to the drink he’d been mixing up. “It’s not- Ngh. It’s not that easy.”

“No, it’s not, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it, either.” Joe reaches out and musses Waylon’s short hair with brotherly regard. “Hey, just take your time. Do it when you’re ready.”

“That- that might be never.” Shaking his head, Waylon tops off Joe’s water glass and sets the second drink next to it. “Would you- I mean.”

“Sure.”

With Waylon’s muttered apologies behind him, Joe heads on to Wendy’s booth. Her lips curl into an amused crescent as he sets her drink down and sits himself across from her. Tucking a bit of blonde behind her ear, she takes a sip and nods her appreciation.

“I was surprised to see you here after you canceled practice,” she murmurs, giving him a glance over the wide rim of her glass. “Not that much of an emergency?”

Joe snorts and his own smile grows brittle as he settles back in the seat. “Not exactly. It’s complicated.”

“As I’d expect from anything you’re involved in.”

Sometimes, Joe wonders about Wendy and who she is when she’s not playing with them or drinking by herself in the Wastes. She’s not the easiest to be close to and even now, he’s not sure he’ll ever understand how she ticks. The way she acts stinks of old money to him, but she’s never treated him like he was beneath her, which just makes it that much harder to get her. To be honest, he’s pretty much given up on that.

“Lets just say things are about to get really busy,” he says finally. “I’ve got a couple guests that are probably sticking around for a while.”

“Oh?” She folds her hands and rests her chin on them. “I didn’t realize you got out enough to make other friends.”

Joe rolls his eyes. “That notwithstanding, they’re friends of my cousin.”

“...As I understood it, he was from Washington? What on earth are they doing here? Or perhaps I’m confusing things...”

“No, you got it as well as I do… I haven’t quite figured out myself what all is going on.” Frowning, Joe rakes his fingers back through his hair and huffs out a frustrated sigh. “The whole business, I don’t know what to make of, but I’ve already agreed to house the birds for a while. At least until they get whatever it is resolved.”

A cool hand settles over his around his glass. He shoots her a look of thanks but pauses at the seriousness of her expression. She usually keeps things light, enjoying the banter as much as he does.

“I would tread carefully, if I were you,” Wendy warns, her voice gentled as her brows furrow. “Guests have a way of changing things, especially when involved in shady dealings.”

“It’s not _shady_ -” He stops because frankly, he can’t quite believe it isn’t. The whole business with John, with the things Aradia said, and what Dave had done… All of it is a ball of confusing, conflicting things and he’s not sure what’s up and what’s down anymore. He sighs a little. “I’ll be careful.”

“See that you do.” She draws her hand back. “I’d hate to lose such a good pianist. Mondays are bad enough as it is.”

Joe snorts, but recognizes that she’s letting things drop. “That reminds me. Do you know anyone who might need these magical fingers during the day?”

“Why, Mr. Egbert, I’m sure I could find someone willing.” Wendy’s eyes go hooded with mirth. “Though I dare say, you might want to supply yourself with more fitting clothes. Things easy to remove.”

Laughter is exactly what he needed. It feels good, warms him up, and he settles out again. “I’m serious though. There’s not much hiring to be had, but I need to earn some extra scratch.”

“I suppose I could ask around, but a paid bed partner is a much easier sell than a pianist,” Wendy murmurs thoughtfully.

“Thanks, I’d appreciate any leads involving the ivory keys only, please.” He gets up, still grinning over the whole mental image.

“Oh, very well. Ruin my fun.”

He shorts and starts off, but a tug at the tail of his shirt gives him pause. Glancing back, he watches Wendy’s pale fingers pull back as she levels a more serious look at him.

“Don’t push yourself too hard, Joe,” she says, gray eyes locked on his as if physically holding him in place. “You need to be ready for the long haul. Something tells me that these guests of yours are just the beginning.”

“Of what?” he asks uneasily, feeling the amusement fading with every word she says.

“That remains to be seen but I don’t doubt that you’ll be in the middle of it all.”

He doesn’t like the sound of that at all or the ominous feel that comes with it. Things are already overwhelming as it is. He doesn’t want to imagine anything more.

”Oh, and Joe?” The seriousness drops away from Wendy’s face as she smiles again. “Watch handling the alcohol. Coddling Waylon isn’t worth the fines poor Amos would get if someone important saw that. He had to jump through enough hoops to have you work here at all.”

Joe flushes a bit at the recrimination because he _does_ know better. “Maybe I wouldn’t have to coddle him if you’d stop doing your best to send him for an earth bath.”

Chuckling, Wendy sets her head delicately on her hands again. “He has to grow up someday. I’m happy to help in that process.”

Shaking his head, Joe takes his empty glass to the bar and then goes on back to the piano. Wendy’s words stick in his mind the rest of the night despite his best efforts. It feels like she was warning him but against what, he has no idea.

\----

It’s two in the afternoon. Joe’s usually just waking up around now but Jade had a class and he’s not having her walk home alone on a friday, so there he is waiting for her outside the building. Maybe it’s a little early for her to get caught with trouble, but he doesn’t want to take the chance. She’s too important to him and though he knows she could probably take care of herself… Well. Joe’s always been a little careful with her.

Besides, he’s been craving a little time just the two of them. Aradia and Porrim are nice enough, but he’s not used to having his space so invaded. He didn’t even realize he could feel like that. Makes sense though. It’s been just the two of them for a long time now.

He’s been trying not to think about the fact that his life is very likely not going back to the way it had been.

Drawing out his phone, Joe scrolls through the numbers and stops at Strider, Dave. He’s done this a couple times since Aradia’s big reveal but… Well. Actually, he’s not sure what’s stopped him every time. He doesn’t think he’s afraid, just...

He’s being silly, is the problem. Joe sighs a little and checks the time. Still a couple minutes to kill if the class doesn’t let out early, which it never does. Then he looks at Dave’s name again.

**– eagerBibliophagist [EB] began pestering tellurianGladiator [TG] at 2:02 --**

EB: its hard to explain puns to kleptomaniacs  
EB: they always take things literally  
TG: hey did you hear the one about the crack  
TG: oh wait that was just the sound of me punching someone in the face because of that joke  
TG: i worry about the crowd you hang out with  
TG: idk i just dont think its a good crowd if thats the kind of jokes you come home with  
EB: i don’t know. i thought it was very witty!  
EB: 8B  
EB: i’ll tell you another. maybe that will help.  
EB: what do you call dangerous precipitation?  
EB: a rain of terror.  
TG: egbert cmon  
TG: youre killin me here  
TG: have some damn mercy on those of us who still have functioning senses of humor  
EB: you’re just being stiff.  
EB: what do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary?  
EB: a thesaurus.  
EB: i have plenty of these, trust me.  
TG: funny i could have sworn the answer to that one was  
TG: all these jokes that joes telling me right now  
TG: why do i get the feeling you heard these back in the roaring twenties  
EB: actually most of them came from my boss  
EB: he just learned sign language. it’s very handy.  
EB: i’ve been assured that this is the way people joke these days.  
TG: idk how to break this to you  
TG: but youve been tragically misled  
TG: are you sure your boss isnt trying to get you killed to collect on your life insurance  
TG: people have been known to be driven to murder by these kinds of things  
EB: i’m tempted to ask what life insurance is but it doesn’t sound very pleasant to me and i’d rather not be killed for it.  
TG: life insurance is the new mob protection dont worry about it  
EB: also, i’m certain you’re not disparaging against my employer’s good name.  
EB: i might be forced to duel you for his honor.  
EB: that is a thing we did in the twenties, after all.  
TG: i might be but youll have to take a raincheck on the duel  
TG: i left my wand and hogwarts robes on the train  
TG: im a disgrace  
TG: also i totally knew the twenties were a gladiatorial society where people solved problems by kicking each others faces in  
TG: i got an a in history so these things dont surprise me  
EB: i will pretend i understand what hogwarts is.  
EB: except that i actually get that reference. my education about modern times is paying off!

You’ve actually been working rather hard to get caught up. It’s just a little hard to do when you can’t admit to why you’re so out of sorts.

EB: you want to hear a pizza joke?  
EB: nevermind. it’s pretty cheesy.  
TG: will you stop if i beg  
TG: is this some kind of awful powertrip  
TG: joe if you dont stop i might do something drastic and awful like take my phone battery out  
EB: that would be a terrible happening, dave. i guess i could stop if it meant you wouldn’t do that.  
EB: i didn’t interrupt anything important, did i?  
TG: nah nothing important  
TG: if anything youre saving me from a young and tragic death from work related boredom  
TG: do you think if i build a pyramid with desks theyll accept work related trauma made me do it for the vine as an excuse and provide me with workers comp  
EB: somehow, i don’t think that will work out for you.  
TG: i could work that angle i think  
TG: i am gonna have to start taking calls again in a minute though  
EB: is doing it for the vine a euphemism for something?

You hear the sound of Jade’s laughter coming your way so you quickly leave a parting shot Dave’s way and straighten away from the wall to greet her. Jade’s gaggle of friends give you bright smiles and one of them shoots Jade a look he doesn’t understand, but she’s always seemed nice so Joe doesn’t think about it too much. Jade waves her off and then grabs up Joe’s arm, pressing to his side.

“Guess what I learned today,” she purred as they started walking towards the apartment building.

“Does it have something to do with Jupiter?”

“Close.” Jade waited a moment for build up. “Well, not really close at all. Gravitational forces. But that’s not what’s so exciting.”

Joe gives her an intrigued glance, eyeing the way she practically bounces with every step. “I’m not going to beg.”

“You’re no fun. Okay, I’ll spill.” She takes a deep breath, peeks to make sure he’s looking, then lets it out in one go. “There’s a ninth planet that got discovered while we were in transit!”

Joe blinks a little. “Huh. Really?”

“I know, it’s crazy.” She drags her backpack over her shoulder and tugs a thick book from it, thumbing through the first couple pages before shoving the diagram in his face. “It’s called Pluto and it’s adorable. Look at it, _so cute_.”

He decides to take her word for it. Jade babbles along about it, something about “dwarf planet” and “changes in classification”, he’s not entirely sure, but the enjoyment Jade’s getting out of it all is clear enough and he likes hearing the excitement in her voice.

He’s so entertained that he almost misses the gaggle of strangely dressed people that pass them on the other side of the sidewalk. Then he pauses and looks back.

“What in the world?” he murmurs as Jade stops a step ahead to look back as well.

The group seems to be in costumes of some kind. Their hair is all different colors, their clothes look like a strange mix of fantasy costumes, school uniforms, and something foreign, and half the words they overhear don’t seem to be english. And now that he’s paying attention, there’s a couple across the street that look just as strange, and a few further down towards one of the hotels.

“Ooooh,” Jade says thoughtfully. “That’s what she meant.”

“Do I want to know?”

A man in a frumpy suit and wide rimmed hat walks by, the long train of his striped scarf nearly hitting the ground-

“Doctor?” Joe asks, bewildered. The man pauses, blinking at him, and it is not the Doctor after all (it was ridiculous of him to think so. That’s a silly television show) but at least he gives a wide grin and a nod before going on.

“I’m not surprised that’s the one you recognize.” Jade rolls her eyes a bit and tugs his hand. “Come on, Space Cowboy, lets go. My bag is heavy.”

“I could carry it for you.” He isn’t surprised when she ignores the offer.

“They call it a “convention”. Madella warned me about it. I get the feeling it isn’t well viewed,” she explains instead. “Some kind of gathering with dressing up and such. She mentioned a thing called ‘anime’, but it looks like there’s some of your Doctor Who in the mix.”

A woman dressed as a bloodstained nurse passes them with a shirtless man at her side with some odd triangular thing on his head. Joe decides maybe he’s best not asking-

They stop at the same time and look at one another.

“It’s perfect,” Jade breathes.

“No one would think about it,” Joe agrees.

And then they grin.

An hour later, Aradia and Porrim are out of the apartment for the first time in a week. No one gives them more than a second look. More than once, the two of them get stopped as people take photographs of their “costumes” and comment on their “makeup”. Porrim has little trouble with the attention but Aradia keeps getting so excited that she floats a few inches off the ground. After the second time, Joe just keeps a hand on her shoulder.

They flit through a thrift store near the hotel that the convention is going through, effortlessly camouflaged by the even stranger people outside as they pick out clothing. After all, they can’t just live in Jade and Joe’s clothes (it had been strange seeing Jade’s shirts stretched over Aradia’s thicker frame, or the way his shirts had draped over Porrim. He’ll be glad when they have their own things.)

Joe spends most of the trip by the front counter in a rocking chair that creaks with every pass. The clerk has a passing knowledge of Star Trek and they chat about this and that captain a while before she suggests he look into something called “Ghostbusters”. He promises he will.

And then he looks out the window and something gold catches his eye. Joe straightens, frowning. The girl is small and lean like a swimmer. Her t-shirt hangs off one shoulder and is ripped across the back, soaked with pink that also dots her pants. Joe’s on his feet before he recognizes the odd red to yellow coloring of her tall horns and out the door while noting the gray of her skin.

The girl jerks and stares at him when he takes her arm. Her eyes are angled farther than Aradia’s but wider than Porrim’s, and her lashes have a distinct pinkish shade to them behind her odd glasses. Her teeth are sharp and dangerous, but when she tries to jerk out of his hold, she sways badly and he has to grab hold to steady her.

"You anglin' for a black eye, guppy? Cuz that’s a line you wanna think twice about castin’,” she grumbles out.

“You’re a troll,” Joe tries because he’s not sure how to handle one of them who doesn’t seem to already know who he is. “Right?”

He gets her steady and lets go, just in case she decides to use those teeth of hers (just where are these people from and what kind of bonkers lifestyle did they live to have teeth like that- and are those _fins?!_ )

“See here, just cuz I like this outfit don’t mean I won’t risk gettin moor blood on it if you tryna usurp me. Why d’ya wanna know?”

The way she says certain words pings him as slightly off, but Joe’s not in the mindset to really appreciate that just yet. She’s definitely one of them, but before he can say something more, the door to the thrift shop opens.

“Joe? We’re- _Meenah?_ ” For a moment, Porrim stares at them completely flabbergasted. Then she straightens, gathering her composure as strides towards them with a confidence that Joe rather admires. “You took long enough to show up.”

“Glubbin’ birds n’ shit,” Meenah grumps before she managed to perk up a bit. “Yo Maryam, you lookin a little less like a shipwreck since I last saw. You know this shellfish?”

Glubbin? Shellfish? Joe wonders if this is some new slang he hasn’t heard yet. Then again, a lot of what the new troll says sounds odd.

“Joe Egbert,” he introduces finally, giving her a helpless smile. “Sorry for just running out at you. I didn’t mean to frighten, but Porrim and Aradia had already found me and- ...That’s blood, isn’t it?”

Porrim’s is green, why would pink be any more strange? He shakes his head a little. Porrim and Aradia had been in bad shape when they got to him and Jade, and it looks like Meenah is similarly battered.

“Look, lets get back to the apartment. We can get you patched up and maybe figure out where to go from there.”

“Shore,” Meenah agrees after looking between him and Porrim a few times, “Ain’t like I got anywhere better to be. An’ anywaves I wasn’t scared or nuthin, so clam it.”

Jade and Aradia slip out of the store with their bags quickly enough and the lot of them head back. Halfway there, Meenah trips over her own feet and almosts takes a dirtnap, but Joe manages to catch her before she hits the ground. She rides on his back the rest of the way and makes sure he knows that this is the _only_ time it’ll ever happen, but at least he’s a good packbeast.

She’s barely conscious when they get to the apartment. Porrim and Jade tag team cleaning her up while she mumbles between them and then Joe helps her stumble to bed. They’re running out of space quickly at this rate. The bedding down situation gets resolved quickly enough, but he’s going to have to get a cot or something if they keep finding people. Sighing, he slumps down onto the couch and thumbs open his phone.

**– eagerBibliophagist [EB] began pestering tellurianGladiator [TG] at 5:32 --**

EB: i thought you’d want to know we’re keeping a pig.  
EB: her name is mina.  
EB: she’s half-mourning like the other two trolls were.  
EB: i don’t suppose anyone knows if we’re expecting more?

**– eagerBibliophagist [EB] ceased pestering tellurianGladiator [TG] at 5:35 -**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I usually don't explain Joe's weird slang, but I will explain this one. "Keeping a pig" basically means having one too many guests. It's not an insult. xD


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing is ever accomplished because there are three times as many Striders as there ever needs to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dropped the ball so hard it liquefied.
> 
> Friendly, nervous reminder that this series is only canon up to the gigapause, and probably slightly loose canon at that.

Dave wakes up the morning after his talk with Dirk with his heart thudding heavily in his chest, swallowing reflexively around the phantom feeling of blood pooling in his throat. It's not that he hasn't dreamed about Before since he'd woken up alive and inexplicably in one piece. It's just that he's never dreamed about it in such lucid detail before. His sleep has been surprisingly undisturbed by nightmares any worse than the typical stress dream; considering that he still had the Last Days of Humanity in his memories, he’d expected something like this far sooner. 

It would fucking figure that expecting it doesn’t do shit to turn away the abrupt nausea and restlessness that hits him as the memories of the dream settle into his subconscious. He can’t help but wonder how much of that had been actual memories of his supposed death, and how much of it had been his own wretched imagination supplying fodders for the few, merciful blanks in his memory.

The light coming in through the window is faint and dull, which is both far too early to be awake, but also early enough that everyone’s asleep and not making a racket. Early enough that even the elder Dirk is still asleep, passed out on the opposite end of the futon and his feet frankly far too close to Dave’s face for comfort. At least his socks look mostly clean.

With a sigh, Dave decides that uneasiness isn’t about to let him go back to sleep, not when the nightmare is still a little too close to the surface for comfort. He finds his feet, wincing at every groan and creak of protest this shitty ass fucking futon lets out before he manages to stand, but his co-Guardian still seems undisturbed and Dave doesn’t really care beyond that. By this point he’s written an entire book on all the reasons the Shitty Futon needs to be burned to death at the stake, and nobody has even blinked at him.

He’d kind of hoped _his_ Dirk would take his side on this very important matter, because Dave knows for sure he provided the kid with better furniture than that, but - honestly, the kid barely seems to notice. Dave can’t blame him. He’s a teenager, he’s not built for noticing shit yet.

He mutters a heartfelt _fuck_ under his breath as he trudges towards the kitchen, glancing in the direction of the bedrooms the kids had finally fallen asleep in last night after more than a few days of passing out in various places around the Most Offensive Object in the apartment. Dirk and MiniDave are holed up in Dave’s room, which used to be Dirk’s room in the future, and Tavros has taken temporary control of the elder - ugh, of Bro’s room. Dave is getting really sick of trying to differentiate everyone in his head. _Terezi_ had gleefully burrowed out a space for herself in the smuppet-ridden attic crawlspace above the - 

Dave pauses, frowns blankly down at the coffee machine he’s fucking with. That’s wrong. That’s wrong and he’s not sure why he thought it was right, but Terezi’s in the smuppet-ridden _third_ bedroom and she’d claimed it for her own, cackling the whole way. He’s...way too tired for this shit, he decides, and he leaves the coffee machine to itself and turns out to the balcony instead.

The chair out there kind of feels like it’s become his personal chair, overlooking the Houston cityscape, and Dave sinks down in it like he’s a middle-aged, balding man sinking into a La-Z-Boy chair after a long day at work. He rubs the heel of his hand against his chest, like he can get rid of the lingering numb-pain of the chunks of him the Condesce took out, but it doesn’t really accomplish anything.

He doesn’t even like balconies. They’re rickety and unsafe, and Dave would boycott them vociferously if this wasn’t one of the few places in the apartment he can actually manage to get his thoughts together in. At least it isn’t a big balcony. Still, lately, Dave always seems to find himself wondering if this is what Old Man English had felt like, all those times Dave had found him settled on that deathtrap _he’d_ called a balcony, watching the stars or the streets or Joe and Jade as they left to try and find the life they wanted.

He wears moroseness like an ill-fitting cape, though, ugly and out of place. He could cast it away, but he doesn't want to fidget around the apartment right now, and he doesn't want to have to force the after-effects of the nightmare away when they seem so stubborn. He has an urge to text Rose, but when he pulls up the app on his phone he doesn't do much except stare blankly at the empty spaces, wondering what he might even say. What he wants to say. It's not really worth it.

He'd text Joe, but Joe is _definitely_ asleep right now and he probably hasn't been for long, nevermind that two days ago he'd dropped his familial drama on the poor kid and hasn't heard from him since. So basically that leaves Dave with nothing to do except sit in the early morning light and ruminate. It's then and there that he decides that _not_ having a job is basically probably the worst thing on the planet. It's not helping anyone for him to be here all the time, adding to the stifling amount of people already hanging around, and it's definitely not helping him to sit here being _useless_. He can get a normal 9-to-5, and maybe he's never had one before, but at least then he'd still have time for the kids, whichever ones are interested in _having_ time with him.

He's talked about it vaguely before, the same way Bro's vaguely talked about the apartment next door, but sooner or later they're going to have to stop _talking_ about things and start getting shit done. Bro's paying the bills right now, but even with his dubious amount of riches, he's gotta be feeling the strain of suddenly having an influx of people to feed and pay water and electricity for. The only problem is setting himself as a real person, in this world – just because he has his driver's license and his wardrobe, it doesn't mean that he's got all the right documents in all the right places. That's something he can and _should_ call Rose about, later; she might have a better idea of that sort of thing, if only because she's always been better at the technicalities and little details.

It settles him to have some kind of plan in place, even if it's sketchy around the edges for now. He rubs his fist against his shirt again, reassured to not feel the stinging pain of open wounds even though he logically knows that they have long been magically healed. He leans back against his chair, and eventually, the ambient sounds of early morning rush hour lure him back to sleep.

Things happen in a strange mixture of urgency and laziness, after that. He calls Rose that morning and between the two of them and the other Lalonde woman, they get his identity set-up and concrete in this universe, and then presumably the other Lalonde decides to pull some favors from dubious contacts (dubious because he doesn't know why a random scientist might have those kinds of contacts) and Dave has a job in another day and a half. It's a tedious call-center job, and within a day he can tell that it’s going to be hilariously boring and hilariously frustrating all at once, but that's almost exactly what he asked for.

It gives him something to do, even if it bores him to tears, and it gets him out of the apartment and gives him an easy, _normal_ thing to focus on. MiniDave doesn't seem to know what to do with having a pseudo-guardian with a real job and tends to just avoid the subject, but Dirk and Hal seem to adjust easily enough. Well, as far as Dave knows, anyway, but the mall trip revealed that he didn't actually know much about Dirk at all, and if he can't read Dirk, he's probably got a Snowball's chance in hell of reading Hal. The trolls are the ones who seem most curious about his newfound profession, but it only takes a few of their questions before he realizes that it's entirely because the jobs on their planet are all equally horrifying positions of murder and mayhem.

The first text messages he and Joe exchange after the whole panic attack debacle actually happen _while_ he's working, probably counting as his first dereliction of his duties, but the phones are surprisingly calm and there aren't any busybody supervisors wandering anywhere close, so he takes his own self-appointed break to read Joe's shitty old jokes and shoot the shit with him.

He takes pleasure in not explaining what 'doing it for the vine' means, because he personally finds it hilarious when Joe doesn't know what something is – half the time it means he'll go on a hilarious quest to figure it out on his own, and then he always comes away with the most hilarious or weird random facts from the internet.

At some point before he clocks out, he gets a frantic handful of phone-calls from the other Guardians and he ends up clocking out early as he fields phone calls from person-to-person as they sort out what's happening. Apparently, most of the last kids had finally shown up, not counting for a couple – nobody knows where someone named Meenah is, but the question people call to ask Dave is if he knows if 'Davesprite' showed up.

The last Dave, then, the one that Bro has been half-sure would show up as well; but when he texts the man, there's no word on any more Strider's showing up from the wild. He doesn't actually get Joe's text until well after 5:30, and it takes a minute to translate Mina into the troll-compliant Meenah, but he shoots a text off towards Egbert to let him know the last troll has been located before he responds.

**\-- telurianGladiator [TG] started pestering eagerBibliophagist [EB] at 5:47pm --**

> TG: keeping a pig  
>  TG: you cant just call people pigs joe its rude  
>  EB: is that not slang anymore?  
>  EB: because amos uses it pretty often. maybe you should just adapt to my superior slang, dave.  
>  TG: your weirdly inappropriate slang aside tho  
>  EB: why do you deny me my stress relief?  
>  TG: jeff says that with meenah everyones accounted for now  
>  TG: last rash of kids and trolls showed up today  
>  TG: except for a last strider but  
>  TG: thats kind of an iffy maybe for him and hell show up here if he shows up anywhere  
>  TG: so theres nothing you need to worry about  
>  EB: if you say so. i’ll try not to.

But even if he's typing, Dave remembers that Joe and Jade aren't exactly the most financially stable pair around – he remembers vaguely that they both do jobs that probably don't pay a whole hell of a lot, and now they're supporting three people on top of that who can't exactly go out and get jobs themselves yet. He frowns, vaguely, and wonders if he should offer to send some money up to help with expenses, but...

He knows Joe well enough to know that Joe is more likely to be offended by the offer than thankful or gracious; he doesn't know if it's just the sensibilities of guys from the twenties, or if it's just Joe's special own special kind of pride, but he can't just throw money at him. Dave considers the problem for all of a few seconds before he gets half an idea and starts typing again.

> TG: just a heads up were goin to send a couple a gift cards for the girls up your way  
>  TG: kind of like a welcome to town gift card  
>  TG: something they can use for clothes or food or whatever  
>  TG: you might need to help them figure out how to use them though  
>  EB: i’m fairly sure jade and i can manage that.  
>  EB: they’re a little preoccupied fighting over the interweb connection right now, but i will pass on the message so they can thank all of you properly.

**\-- telurianGladiator [TG] ceased pestering eagerBibliophagist [EB] at 5:55 pm --**

Right. That’s that taken care of, even if Dave now has to figure out where the hell you even get gift cards for shit like that. One of the few adults in this group of theirs has to know, and Dave decides the most likely suspects are Jeff and Jedd. He’s already walking into the apartment by the time he sends _that_ text off, and he looks up into a cloud of teenagers for the umpteenth day in a row. On one hand, Dave muses, he’s still ecstatic as fuck that his little brother is actually walking around in 2013 like he’d never been stuck at the end of the world at all. But on the slightly more irritable hand, there are like thirteen billion teenagers in this apartment and they are _everywhere_.

MiniDave has actually managed to drape himself across both the trolls, and together the three of them have commandeered the entire Shitty Futon, from which they are idly playing the XBox. They didn’t even fold it back up into something vaguely couch-shaped first. Hal is sitting on the floor in front of the Futon, making disparaging comments about either the game itself or Dave’s play style. And Dirk looks like he’s being intensely interrogated by Bro, but he also doesn’t look all that uncomfortable about it - Dave would wonder what they’re talking about, but since the first conversation they ever had was about Hal’s beginnings and Dave only understood every other five words, he decides to just leave it alone.

Dave gets about five seconds to wonder how long he could feasibly camp out on the roof before Bro notices him. Dirk follows the older man’s gaze and Dave would wonder about the way he looks away again almost immediately and then walks straight to the pile of teenagers on the Shitty Futon, but then Bro’s waving him over to where he’s set up camp for the day.

Really, Dave supposes he’s the lucky one. Bro looks remarkably unharassed for a man who’s been bombarded by Strider teens all day. Dave’s barely made it to the kitchen before Bro’s tossed a sheaf of papers at him; he finds his eyebrows raising as he reads them over. Alright, then - maybe Bro isn’t quite as unflappable about their small herd as he seems.

“Okay, that’s cool and all, if not sudden.”

“Yeah. Figured if you were really serious enough about getting the full Cubicle Experience as it turns out you were, then you were probably pretty serious about the second apartment. Talked to the landlord today and got it all straightened out.”

Dave admits to being a little impressed, since he’s pretty sure it usually takes longer than that to secure an apartment. This is a little more than just short notice, but he’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. If the apartment is the same as this one, that means that he can manage a room of his own and there will be minimal doubling up in the kids’ rooms.

“I don’t know what to say. It’s almost like you’re a real adult, and shit. Next thing I know you’re _not_ going to be mentally scarring the delivery people at the door,” he says, leafing through the rent agreement. Bro snorts and leans back against a counter, apparently deciding not to deign him with a response to that. It doesn’t take long to look through everything, mostly because Dave gets bored partway through and decides Bro’s _probably_ already made sure everything’s on the up and up. “I’m practically jittery at the thought of never looking at that shitty fucking futon again, so I’ll head up the adult ration over there. When can we start the move?”

“Landlord says we can get the keys tomorrow.” Dave can handle that, but apparently Bro takes the thoughtful twitch of his lips as a grimace, because he adds, “It was the quickest I could get him to agree to. It’s only one night, Dave, you wouldn’t want to deny the futon of her last chance to lovingly embrace you, would you?”

“Hold on one fucking minute,” comes a voice that sounds, regrettably, like Dave’s did at sixteen. They both turn back towards the living room and it’s occupants, only to find that MiniDave has awkwardly twisted himself halfway around his troll friends to stare at them with a judgmentally flat expression. “Why the hell are we getting another apartment. This one’s fine.”

Is he kidding. Shamefully, Dave thinks that he’s _actually_ serious, and finds nothing wrong with the very obvious lack of space. Dave is too flabbergasted by this to actually respond, but thankfully Bro comes to the rescue.

“Sorry, lil man, it’s the law. Apartments can only have a certain level of teenage funk and musk before it starts to get dangerous. That shit fucks with the lungs, man, handing out asthma faster than second-hand smoke.”

“Bro. Bro, no, we can’t fucking move. This place is great.” For fuck’s sake. Dave finds himself rubbing at his temple in exasperation, and only barely manages to snort in outright mockery of that statement.

“No one’s moving,” he reassures the kid, instead. “Well, some of us are, but only across the hall. Whatever it is you think, there’s not actually enough room in here for all of us. It’s starting to cramp more than just our collective style.”

MiniDave stares at him, before snorting.

“Whatever. You just want out cuz you hate the futon. Man, what’d Francis ever do to you? I’m staying here, whatever you assholes decide. She’ll need my comfort after this harsh rejection.”

“You do that,” Dave tells him, with heavy bemusement. “Anyway, I figure you could stay here with your Bro, and I’ll take Dirk and Hal and one of the trolls. Dirk and Hal can room together, and -”

“Hey,” Hal interrupts him, looking at Dirk. “Remember that time you literally tried to murder me? Good times, definitely.”

What. Dave feels his thoughts short out a moment, and he doesn’t quite have them back together when Dirk responds, the hint of an actual scowl on his face.

“Oh my god, you were a pair of _sunglasses_. I thought you were machinating against my friends.”

“Nice excuse. But we all know it’s just because you couldn’t handle someone pointing out all your -”

“ _Right_ ,” Dave interrupts, because these kids have literally the _worst_ kind of drama. Every last one of them. “So, Dirk and Hal can each take a room across the hall, and Tavros can room with one of them. Dave keeps his room, and Terezi gets one to herself like the lady she is. Is that good?”

“Actually, I’d prefer to stay where I am.” Dave falters, because it’s Dirk who said that and he honestly didn’t expect it. For a moment, it’s all he can do to stare at him, because the rejection stings more than it ought to from a sixteen year old kid. MiniDave apparently has no such compunctions with immediately questioning that decision, because he lets out a frustrated groan.

“Dude, no. Give me my room back, seriously.” Since MiniDave isn’t Hal, it looks like Dirk’s back to being inscrutable, because all he does is set a hand on his hip and snort derisively.

“Get over yourself. It used to be my room, too.” That’s a point that is seems like neither Dave can argue, because MiniDave lets out an irritated huff of breath, but fails to keep arguing. There are ways he probably _could_ argue, probably with some of the same arguments that Dave himself is coming up with, but he’s apparently decided that it’s not worth arguing over.

Noticeably, Dave doesn’t argue either, despite that he wants to. What can he say to that, anyway? Dirk’s got no real reason to want to be around a brother he’s never even known, and the bedroom is probably still the most familiar thing to him, even if it’s not technically _his_. Besides, Dave proved he’s not equipped for this shit the other day at the _mall_ , and it’s just for the best if he lets the kid stay here with the Guardian that might actually be able to handle him.

“Right,” he says, before the silence drags on for too long. He can feel Bro watching him, but the man hasn’t said anything at all since these negotiations started and Dave kind of doubts he will. “Then Dave and Dirk will bunk together, and - Hal, do you want to stay here, too?” But all Hal does is shrug, unhelpfully, looking bored and uninterested, so Dave sighs and looks over all of them.

“Cooladult!” Sharktooth shouts, her mouth wrapped in that eerie grin of hers, “I want to stay in your hive!! Let me trade with husktop. He can have the room I’m staying in now and I can take the room he was going to have in your hive! Hehehe.” Hal makes an offended noise, which at least clears up who the hell Husktop is supposed to be.

Well, it’s not like arguing about it would do any good. Neither of his brothers seem all that interested in him, and he’s kind of grateful this tiny shark troll actually seems to _want_ to stay with him. That’s a few steps too close to pathetic, though, so he ignores the thought and nods.

“Sounds like a solid plan, then. Tavros and Terezi room over at mine, and Hal gets the extra room here. Everyone happy with _that_ plan?” 

“Uh. I guess?” says Tavros in an apparently Tavros-ly manner. It’s basically the first time he’s said anything at all in a place that Dave can hear him, anyway, so that has to imply _some_ kind of contentment with the plan. Everyone else makes vague noises of agreement, and then MiniDave quickly turns back to his XBox game and takes the attention of the trolls and Hal with him. Dirk lingers for maybe a handful of seconds, but pretty abruptly he disappears back into the room that’s now been officially named at least halfway his.

Dave turns back to Bro, and pretends he doesn’t notice the wry twist of the other man’s mouth. “Guess that means I need to do some furniture shopping, huh?”

“Sure. I’ve gotta go take care of some business, man, but the kids are pretty stationary. I’ll be back later.” Occasionally, Bro does this - disappears for a couple of hours claiming business. Dave’s gotten used to it, but he still kind of wishes the man would stick around for now. He’s not really sure how to handle teenagers and his _own_ selfish emotions. But he shrugs in indifference anyway, and Bro claps him on the shoulder as he walks past him.

Dave ignores the sound of Bro telling MiniDave and the others he’ll be back later and pulls his phone out.

**\-- telurianGladiator [TG] pestered teacupTautology [TT] at 6:24 pm --**

> TG: why is being a parent so hard  
>  TG: seriously i dont think its supposed to be this hard  
>  TG: when did i agree to take this level on nightmare mode  
>  TG: rose we werent nearly this complicated as teenagers  
>  TT: Dave, all teenagers are complicated. Even you. Especially you.  
>  TT: Especially if I recall the stories you told me, correctly.  
>  TT: You complicated your way straight into multiple movie deals and a director’s seat.  
>  TG: so not the point  
>  TG: cant you be a good friend and let me vent  
>  TG: jeez rose  
>  TT: If you can find it in yourself to remember, I have also found myself the guardian of a ludicrous number of adolescents. You’re not alone in this, and you’re certainly not the only one struggling.  
>  TT: If you need to talk, there’s no need to be obtuse about it.  
>  TG: nah  
>  TG: thanks though  
>  TG: everythings dandy here  
>  TG: dandier than wolverine back before he got his mutant powers even  
>  TG: dandier than a whole fucking field of dandelions  
>  TG: just chilling in the breeze swaying  
>  TG: what about you  
>  TG: rose lalonde actually struggling with something cmon  
>  TG: youve gotta be pulling my leg  
>  TG: youve gotta be careful with those rose  
>  TG: my legs are delicate and i need them  
>  TT: I will be as gentle with your delicate legs as I am with your fragile self-esteem, Dave, I can promise you that.  
>  TT: As for the rest of it, you’d be surprised.  
>  TG: i doubt it  
>  TG: cmon lalonde hit me  
>  TT: Very well. My daughter and my....sister’s daughter are struggling former alcoholics. My sister and I aren’t exactly pinnacles of sobriety ourselves.  
>  TT: Not that this is their fault at all, of course.   
>  TG: oh  
>  TG: shit lalonde  
>  TG: thats fucked up  
>  TG: can i do anything for you  
>  TT: No. Except that it’s warming to know that you would offer in the first place, David. Between the four of us, we’ll manage to navigate this very trying situation. After all, our daughters managed to go sober by themselves in less than stellar conditions. Dr. Roxy and I have their support and proof that it can be done.  
>  TT: Are you sure there’s nothing that you would like to talk about?  
>  TG: uh yeah  
>  TG: more than sure  
>  TG: its less of a sure thing that the earth is littered with calderas that will eventually kill us all  
>  TT: Are you really sure of that, Mr. Strider? The world has, after all, changed in strange and inexplicable ways.  
>  TG: lalonde i am more sure of that than i am of the fact that youre a flighty broad  
>  TG: no matter how inexplicably the world changes that will always be true  
>  TT: Truly, us flighty broads pose more of a danger to the world than ancient, active calderas.  
>  TT: If there’s truly nothing you need from me, Dave, then I must say goodbye, for now.  
>  TT: Roxy and I have a few plans to go over.  
>  TG: what kind of plans  
>  TT: Important ones.  
>  TG: inscrutable as fuck  
>  TT: ;)

**\-- teacupTautology [TT] ceased pestering telurianGladiator [TG] at 6:37 pm --**

Dave sighs, because at least none of his kids have addictions. That he knows of, anyway. He takes a moment to eyeball the group in the living room, and then cast a wary glance in the direction Dirk slunk off to, but he dismisses the idea pretty quickly. Internet junkies maybe, but nothing more hardcore than that.

He could text Joe, he knows, and he stares at his phone for a long moment - but in the end, he’s probably already dumped enough of his family drama on the poor kid, and now that he’s got his hands full with trolls, Dave’s not about to dump more of it on him. He could text just to say hi, but that would be master-level lame and Dave’s put himself through enough emotional trauma for the day.

He spends far too long shopping for furniture, instead, more than familiar with most of the online stores he finds thanks to the last time he fully furnished this place. After that, he orders dinner for the kids, briefly wonders about their nutrition, and then destroys all of them on the XBox. He makes all of them go to their rooms at midnight, worn out from a long day of an actual job and all the other bullshit. Bro isn’t back by the time he falls asleep.

He is when Dave wakes up in the morning, though, and like they’ve been waiting for some kind of invisible signal, the futon is pretty quickly taken over by the kids once Dave is awake and off of it. It’s saturday. So fucking sue him if he decided to sleep in for a few hours. Dave barely escapes the swarm with his life, and he heads straight to the coffee pot once he’s free and safe. Breakfast appears to be pizza rolls that were microwaves approximately an hour ago, but Dave doesn’t even care. Food is food, and he’s hungry as hell.

After consuming these few remnants of the ravenous race of teenagers, Dave takes advantage of the free bathroom to shower and get dressed, and by the time he’s done, Bro’s standing impatiently next to the futon.

“Are we ready to get those keys or what? No offense, but I’m about ten seconds away from throwing all of you off the roof.” Dave gets that feel, so all he does he wave vaguely at the door in invitation for Bro to go first.

“Have at, Princess. Right behind you.”

The endeavor might have proven a greater success if Bro didn’t open the door only to have someone barrel into him at approximately mach six. It’s only the older man’s quick reflexes that keep this mysterious speedster from rebounding right back down the stairs he presumably dashed up, but the whole apartment goes quiet when this nefarious hit and run criminal is brought into the light.

So. Dave supposed that must be the _other_ MiniDave they’re waiting for. He can’t see Bro’s expression, but he can imagine it, easy enough - he’d already witnessed one Bro+Dave reunion, after all, and he’s had one of his own. He _can_ see the, uh, first MiniDave’s expression, though, and there’s a twist to the kids mouth that isn’t entirely happy and is at least somewhat confused. Dave makes the executive decision to ignore whatever _that_ is, and focuses instead on the newest addition of their household.

The kid’s gone Strider blank by the time Bro tugs him inside, hand tight at his upper arm like he thinks the new MiniDave might make a run for it. Pretty obvious he won’t, considering how fast he had to be going, to bounce that far. He manages to stop staring at Bro, even though Dave’s pretty sure he doesn’t actually want to, and instead stares at the small community of Striders and Trolls in the apartment. His mouth is a firm line and his entire body radiates absolute tension in every inch… of…

The new MiniDave is missing half an arm. That’s… new. New is definitely a word that fits this situation. At least it won’t be hard to tell the MiniDaves apart? Bro hadn’t mentioned this, though. Dave’s having trouble _ignoring_ this. Half a fucking arm. How the hell did one even manage that? Dave was pretty sure he didn’t want to know. MiniDave #2 takes a while to just stare at everyone, or he looks like he would, before Sharktooth moseys over to poke at his face like it’s any other day of the goddamn week and it’s no skin off her back if there’s another Dave missing half an arm wondering around. MiniDave #2 jerks a little, a tiny internal movement except for the way it takes his face about an inch from her hand. 

“So, what, are we sardines now?” he asks. Dave is reminded that there is now another teenager amongst them and is really fucking grateful they get the second apartment today.

“You’d think so from the smell alone,” Bro speaks up, and Dave doesn’t miss the way he reaches up and lightly ruffles this new Dave’s hair. “But luckily, we’re not all staying here. Unluckily, you’ll probably be bunking with someone. Hal’s bunking alone right now, or you could convince Dirk he really does want to room with his brain twin and bunk with...Dave. Up to you, lil man.”

MiniDave #2 glances Dirk’s way and then his gaze slides to Hal and just kind of sits there a second before dropping to no one the second Bro mentions him bunking with Dave. And wow, that is a really good impression of ruffled feathers that just happened right there. If this were an anime, he’s pretty sure MiniDave #2’s hair would have just flared without a wind.

“Hal’s fine,” MiniDave #2 says like everything’s chill.

It is absolutely not chill, and Dave doesn’t even need to be psychic to be able to tell. In fact, things are feeling just this side of frigid and awkward, and he can already foresee the massive headache whatever _this_ is, is going to cause.

“Thank god,” Hal says, breaking the very brief silence that lingered after MiniDave #2’s short statement and said kid jerks to stare at him with barely veiled surprise. “For a moment there, I thought you were seriously going to try and make me room with Dirk, and then I would’ve had to have flown just straight off the handle. I sat on the dude’s face for years, in the least sexy way possible. I’ve had enough of him. I haven’t had any time at all to become thoroughly annoyed with this Dave yet, though. A better Dave, if you will. Sweet.”

That kid cannot read atmosphere worth shit. Dave raises an eyebrow at him, but Hal’s not even looking at any of them, anymore. MiniDave #1, however, is looking increasingly annoyed, and has turned to scowl at the game menu on the television. With a coolly concealed roll of his eyes, Dave nods towards the door of the apartment.

“Right, I’m gonna go and get those keys while you all get reacquainted.” At least he’s not the only one with younger twin brothers who don’t get along. Something tells him that this is worse than whatever’s going on between Dirk and Hal, but he’s _really_ not prepared to touch the subject with a pole of any length.

The good news is that this is _definitely_ the last kid anyone has to worry about showing up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, you guys can talk to the cast over at: asksomestriders.tumblr.com  
> Don't let the title fool you, TGP will totally draw more than just the Striders.
> 
> You can talk to the staff over at: hedirectorscut.tumblr.com


	8. Chapter 8

Meenah sees nothing wrong with flaunting her presence to the entire complex, the neighborhood, and the entire world. It takes Joe begging and promising to bring her “the best glubbin human booty” before she agrees to stay inside (for now). At least she seems to have her friends in random parts of the country to talk to. That’s an okay enough solution to the impossible problem of what the hell do do with everyone.

The apartment, which hadn’t been all that big to begin with, stays crowded _all the time_. It’s enough to make Joe’s skin crawl so he doesn’t feel too bad about band practice or putting a few hours into teaching the Roberts’ kid on the fourth floor piano twice a week before heading to the bar. The kid hates it, Joe’s not much more fond of bullying her along, but at least it’s only them and the nanny most of the time. He’s gonna try introducing her to some ragtime and see if that gets her interested. Who wouldn’t be interested in ragtime?

His landlady doesn’t mind the new guests when he lets her know about them, but she does up the rent and says something about keeping things hush hush on the occupant load or she’d throw him out faster than old milk. Joe knows exactly how fast milk goes old and sour these days and he’d rather not have to find a new place so quickly.

At least the money cards the others send make it easier to clothe the trolls and get them various supplies they needed. One worry he can scratch off the lengthening list. It doesn’t help much in their suddenly tripled grocery bills or the way Meenah and Aradia fight over the thermostat once they’ve been introduced to them.

Jade had thought she was being thoughtful. Turns out, she incited a _war_.

For whatever reasons, Meenah runs colder than any of them and Aradia runs hotter. Sometimes, Joe gets home from the bar and the apartment is sweltering. That’s not too weird, since he and Jade sometimes turn off the air conditioning completely during lean months, but then he’ll wake up in the morning to temperatures that feel sub zero. Porrim is apparently smart enough to not get involved in the debacles, but Joe catches her and Jade eye rolling a _lot_.

None of this makes Joe feel any better about leaving for a day.

“I could stay,” Joe offers as Jade smoothes out the shirt he’s taking with him and folds it much more nicely than he had. He may be better at darning but Jade’s got a more detail minded presentation. He’ll be grateful for it later, especially the ones she hangs up just right so that there won’t be any awkward wrinkles in them when he needs them for work.

“Nope,” she says with a cheery brightness he’s come to understand as her “you’re being an idiot” voice.

“They’ll refund my ticket.”

She doesn’t even bother looking at him as she tucks the shirt into his tiny travel satchel and reaches over to fix a pair of socks holding his toiletry bag securely in place. “Joe, you haven’t been in over a year.”

“I just met with Jeff a few weeks ago-”

“That is _not_ a replacement for visiting your father.”

Joe feels the skin around his eyes tightening. He turns back to his closet where his clothes have been relegated to half the hanging bar on one wall and a single drawer. The rest is taken mostly by Porrim and Meenah while Jade and Aradia share theirs relatively equally. He’s not exactly… _angry_ about the take over so much as he kind of wishes they could just get a bigger place so he didn’t have to share. Sharing with Jade is nothing like sharing with young women he barely knows. It’s bad enough that he’s given up his bed to them and has a near permanent crick in his back from the couch but then he has barely any room to hang up his work clothes, too.

“Joe,” Jade murmurs, coming up behind him to rest her cheek against his shoulder. It soothes the battle in him a little, the way she always does. If he weren’t already sure it’d never work, he would marry her in an instant. “If you don’t want to see him, you don’t have to.”

And that just makes him want to say all manner of terrible, awful things he’d never say around her. He _does_ want to see his father. He misses him, somehow, a little bit, but the thing is, with three new roommates, the flight to New York is a ridiculous expense and he feels completely awful about keeping it, even though it had been planned and paid for well before Dave Strider reappeared and brought all the chaos with him. His father had _replied_ _to a letter!_ It had to mean something.

“I do,” Joe admits miserably. Because she already knows, Jade just gives his back a gentle pat.

“Then stop worrying about it. We’ll make do. We always manage.” She smiles and kisses his shoulder before turning back to his satchel. “Besides, this way you can take some good snapshots for Porrim’s blog.”

Little as Joe’s bothered to understand about the interweb, he understands blogs even less. As far as he can tell, it’s writing a lot of nonsense about nothing for no reason. Porrim seems to enjoy hers though, so he’s glad she’s found something to do. She says she’s “studying human behavior within their normal habitat” and apparently writes up stories about the goings on outside the windows and on various news channels. He hasn’t looked at the blog, partially because computer screens make his eyes hurt after a little while even with his glasses, but Joe’s sure whatever that means is a good thing. Good enough to hold her attention, anyway.

A bang from the livingroom makes them both jump a little before glancing at each other ruefully.

“It’s been four glubbing hours!” Meenah snarls at the wall, banging her fist to it again. “Would you lubbers stop SCREAMING already!”

The walls of Joe and Jade’s apartment complex are fairly thin. The neighbors on the south side have a very unhealthy relationship. Joe and Jade had gotten used to it a year ago when they moved in but Meenah’s temper gets shorter by the day. Joe’s not sure how much longer it’ll be before she claws through the wall to get to them. He almost hopes he’s here to see it. They are _really_ loud neighbors.

But right now, both he and Jade just sigh a little.

“I’ve got it. You finish up. Make sure you take that camera. I want a picture of your dad to put on the mantel, too.” Jade kisses his shoulder again and then heads off to corral the trolls.

Joe gives his satchel a heavy look. He can’t back out of going. He’s already told his father he would show and he is not going to back out of that. He takes a long, deep breath and lets it out twice as slow.

Then he finishes packing his satchel and gets out to catch the bus. On the way to the airport, he starts trying to figure out just how they might afford a better place. The trolls can’t work because none of them have social security numbers and they aren’t normal looking. He’s not going to ask Jade to take more hours at the bookstore; she’s got a big load at school and needs the study time. So, that means he needs to make more money.

He’s already got all the hours the club can give him right now, considering he’s there every night it’s open. Maybe he could pick up some more piano students? The Roberts paid okay and they might have friends who needed a teacher. Or maybe he could put out an ad? Something. He’ll check with Wendy to see if she’s found anything since last time he asked. Anyone she pals around with would certainly be able to afford to pay him well.

For a moment, Joe considers seeing if that website Jade submits photographs to when she has the time needs another male model again. They’ve only used him once and it was in one of Jade’s shoots. They might be able to use him again, maybe. It hadn’t paid that much but it hadn’t taken too long, either. He could certainly ask and look into other opportunities along the way.

It’s something. Joe feels better with some bare semblance of a plan. Now he just has to fly in a plane for a couple hours and go face New York. Super simple.

\----

_Egbert’s Delicate Delights_ is just as he left it last year. The front windows are wide to let in the daylight, colorful displays lining it with candies of all shapes and sizes. Glimmering sugar snowflakes sit near a plate of carefully stacked lemon drops with marshmallows in the shapes of flowers. Gummy animals create a veritable circus between long, swirling lollipops and tiny peppermint bows. The windows are lined with pretty, little lights that glint off the tidy teal overhang and match the draped detail along the displays inside.

The colors in the window are the soft pastels and faded creams he doesn’t see in stores anymore. Everything these days, especially for children, is bright and primaries, jarring in how quickly they draw his eyes. There’s nothing jarring about the window display, only inviting. What brighter shades there are get soothed with glistening whites and gentler tints. He misses this kind of thing, generally only when he’s reminded that it exists.

Inside the shop is full of children and their parents. They coo over displays and bargain with each other for shared purchases, figuring through just how to get the most out of their dollars. A little girl in red and white squeals as her mother drops a bit of taffy in her hands and then gobbles it up as she dances with delight. Nearer to the counter, two boys huddle with their faces pressed to the display glass as they salivate over rows of colorful fudges mixed with fruit and nuts.

It’s Sunday so the shop won’t be open much longer and there is a vague sort of hurry in the customers, wanting to make sure they get their treats before it’s too late. Joe takes a slow, deep breath and then finally opens the wide, glass door to join them. A tiny bell signals his arrival but no one pays it any real mind. It’s easily drowned out by the faint music playing from a high, overhead speaker that looks about as old as the shop. Joe is pretty sure it’s the original one he helped his father install when he was ten.

Over the din, he can just barely make out his father’s words as he rings out a pair of lovers practically giggling over the bag of liquorice scottie dogs. Jeffrey Egbert looks exactly the same as Joe assumed he would. The sleeves of his tidy white button up are rolled up neatly to his elbows but all the buttons are still fastened all the way and his bow tie stays perfectly centered and straight. His embroidered teal apron doesn’t have a stain on it or even a speck of sugar despite the fact that he works all day long. Even his graying hair is perfectly kempt, swept back from his face in a carefully gelled wave without a hair out of place. The crow’s feet at the edges of his pale eyes are no deeper, nor are the lines along the corners of his mouth or the white in his hair any further along. Jeffrey Egbert is a man out of time in ways he’s never noticed and never will, and that no one but Joe knows about.

Joe knows he, too, is out of his own time, but he’s not like his father. _He_ continues to actually grow and change.

When his father finishes with the current customer, his gaze flickers over the shop to keep a sharp eye on the rest and any opportunities to send someone home with more than they thought they wanted. Joe waits and sees the exact moment that his father notices he’s there and then when he actually recognizes him. His expression doesn’t change but he starts to say something until the two boys in front of the fudge display suddenly decide on their favorites.

“Give me a moment, my boy,” he says without even looking at Joe, but he knows Joe will do just that.

Joe waits quietly, looking over a menagerie of little, crystal like angels of sugar and beautiful little dogs sculpted out of gumpaste for the next hour as his father forgets he’s there. He’s not surprised by this. Joe knew early in his life that the shop came first, had the lesson pounded in his head over and over. It’s not too long a wait. He’s waited longer, before.

The last customer finally files out and his father walks them out before tugging the door closed behind them. He at last greets him with a curt, “Hello, Joe. Keeping out of trouble?”

“Always. I thought it’d be nice to visit. I… it’s been a while.”

“Has it?” his father asks absently, but he’s already starting to lose any sort of interest. He flips the little closed sign into place and then licks sugar off his thumb before rubbing a bit of tarnish off the edge of door knob fitting with the edge of his apron.

Abruptly, Joe realizes his father has already forgotten that he said he’d come in the first place. Or probably that he even sent a letter at all. He’s pretty sure he forgot about the letter the moment he sent it. Joe’s chest tightens up and he feels very, very _small_. Just like when he was a child. He reminds himself that he’d expected this even though he kind of hadn’t. He’d been so hopeful when he got the letter… Well.

His father steps back behind the counter to fetch his cleaning supplies because a tidy shop is a happy shop and why put off ‘til tomorrow what you can do today. Joe can almost hear it recited in his head from when he’d helped after school, at least before he’d started working for the newspaper.

“Are you ready for summer?” Joe tries, grasping at straws as he approaches the counter, hands twitching until he stuffs them into his pockets. His father makes a quiet, acknowledging sound as he wipes down the counter. His fingers are always pinked from the heat of the candy he works with all day, but his wrists are the same old ruddy peach color Joe didn’t inherit from him that his strange younger double seems to have from his own father. Joe’s got his mother’s coloring and, he hopes, just about everything else. He certainly had her height, standing several inches over his father the way he does the same with Jeff.

“Just about,” his father mutters finally.

“Anything new?”

“Maybe some new sour fruit chews. Sour is getting popular.”

That’s the same thing he’d said last year. Looking around the shop, Joe knows it never happened because his father probably forgot. His father _always_ forgets new things. His changed place in history hasn’t changed that.

“You seemed busy,” he tries again. “Full house. Business is good?”

“It ebbs and flows.”

Joe has no idea why he even came here. His father has barely looked at him once. He stands in the middle of the shop and watches as his father works on scrubbing the cooled sculpting surface down, carefully feeling out every tiny speck of melted on sugar that could ruin the next batch. The molds get more scrutiny, more attention, than Joe ever has in his entire life. Closing his eyes, Joe takes the moment he’s granted and fights down the surge of shameful resentment fighting to fill him. He knows how important the shop is, knows how his father loves it. He knows, it’s okay, it’s nothing he didn’t already expect. It’s _fine_. He’s just off base because of the stress from having the trolls, not because this is any harder to handle than it was before.

“I’ve met some new people,” he murmurs and almost misses the absent noise his father makes instead of actually listening. “They’re… strange. Beyond strange, but they’re good people. I like them.”

His father moves onto scrubbing his tools, keeping up with his routine flawlessly.

“And Dave. I told you about him last year, remember? He came back. He’s said he’d be around for a while. He’s not going to disappear into the future again.”

“That’s nice, son.”

Joe stops because as he watches his father continue on, he realizes once more that the man hasn’t actually heard a word he’s said. It’s not getting through and really, it probably never will. Joe swallows the growing lump in his throat. His hands are shaking, have been since he started talking, and clenching them into fists within his pockets doesn’t help.

“Dad?” It comes out near a whisper and he doesn’t even know why he says it, but maybe this time-

“That’s nice, son,” his father replies as blandly as ever.

Joe drops his head. He blinks his eyes until the threatening wetness recedes, stubbornly refuses to let that happen because he’s stronger than that and he knows…. He knows his father stopped actually seeing him years ago.

He shouldn’t have come here. He forgets just how much it hurts because he doesn’t have to feel it every day anymore. Joe tugs his camera out from his satchel and lines up a shot. His father doesn’t look at him. Joe takes a picture of him from the back for Jade and then tucks the camera away again.

There’s no point in staying. Joe quietly unlocks the door and steps out but he hesitates there. He looks back and watches his father finish up the tools and molds, pick up the broom.

“Bye, Dad,” he can’t resist saying.

“Goodbye, Joe. Don’t stay out too late. There are ruffians about.”

Joe swallows the growing lump in his throat. He wonders how his father can go through life like this, caught in his timeless little shop where nothing ever changes. Where his twenty year old son is still a child to be lectured. Then again, Jeffrey Egbert hasn’t looked at anyone and seen them since his wife died and Joe knows that. He’s known that for a long time because the shop has been all his father could bear to keep in his thoughts.

“I won’t,” he manages, even though his throat is choked. Then he tugs the door shut behind him and heads out onto the street.

The letter hadn’t meant anything. He should probably stop doing this to himself. If Jade knew the state his father was in, she probably wouldn’t let him, but Joe can’t let himself give up on his father entirely. He can’t leave his father alone even if his father wouldn’t even know. Joe would know and he’d never be able to live with himself.

Joe had expected to stay a little longer with his father but he should have known better. Now he has an entire afternoon and night to fill with… something. He wanders the streets a while, taking photographs for Porrim’s blog. She’s wanted shots of just about anything so he’s liberal with them. These newfangled digital cameras could hold a couple hundred photographs. It’s not like he has to be that careful. Since his father’s shop is situated at the edge of one bigger shopping center, he gets a lot of photographs of fashionable young women and little girls with their mothers. A few men pepper the crowds here and there, either just as well dressed or otherwise wearing the exasperated look of a pack mule. Joe makes sure to get a couple shots of them. He has no idea what Porrim will want to use.

As he’s setting up his next shot, a woman stumbles near by, bumping into him and dropping several bags. Joe barely manages to keep hold of his camera when he throws out a hand to steady her so she doesn’t go crashing into the ground. Her bags don’t fare so well and her things go sprawling hither and yon. Joe lets go of her once she’s steady and stuffs his camera back into his satchel.

“I’m so very sorry,” she says as they both stoop down to gather everything together.

“It’s no problem, miss,” he tells her, stuffing a few last things back into one of the bags. “The sidewalk ain’t always straight and tidy.”

When he looks at her, she is an odd kind of pretty. Her pale hair is cropped short and tidy over blue eyes that look almost violet- or are they? He hadn’t thought that was possible in humans, but his and Jade’s eyes are kind of weirdly bright, too. He thinks she’s probably Dave’s age, her skin soft and smooth but a certain knowledge in her face. She’s dressed like one of those well-to-do ladies on the television, the kind that have busy lives and important jobs. Joe helps her back up and her hand is soft in his own with oddly rough fingertips. He wonders what she does.

“What a polite young man,” says another light haired lady who looks enough like the first that Joe’s pretty sure they’re related. The second lady smiles like she’s got a playful secret wrapped up inside her. Joe finds himself blushing a little for no reason he can figure. She’s weird-pretty, too, and it turns out that both of them are taller than him but this dame’s got several inches over. He tries not to feel a little resentful.

“There’s a couple more cracks the way you’re going,” he says as he turns to the first woman. “So you should probably watch your steps.”

A smile slips onto the first woman’s face, a little less playful than the second’s but still just as secretive, and definitely like something he’s said has somehow amused her, whatever that may be. “I’ll be as mindful as possible, but it’s always interesting to see what life’s little trips bring you, don’t you think?”

“I’d like to trip all over _him_ ,” the second woman muses aloud, putting only minimal effort in being subtle. It makes the first woman’s smile disappear into a sigh and a wry, faintly fond expression. Joe blinks a little at first but he grins anyway because flirting is fun and he doesn’t tend to get the chance outside of work, and that’s more about being a good showman than anything else.

“Don’t gotta trip to get in good with me, doll,” he assures her. “Pretty lady like you already is.”

This seems to make the second woman brighten in almost direct relation to how high the first rolls her gaze towards the heavens. Joe can almost hear her mentally asking what she’s done to deserve this and nearly cracks up. Two birds with one stone, this couple of broads.

“ _Doll_? That’s precious. Oh, Rosie, isn’t he precious? I want one just like him.”

“Maybe,” the first woman, Rosie, starts, and there’s definitely amusement under the exasperation, “you should ask what his name is first.”

“That’s an incredible idea! S’cuse me, fine sir, but do you perchance have a name?”

“You know, I think I do,” he says, reaching to take her hand in a sweeping gesture and draw it up so he can kiss her knuckles, like in one of those fancy motion picture he and Jade went to once. “Joe Egbert at your service, ma’am. And can I have the lady’s name, too?”

His immediate response is a flurry of giggles stifled behind the woman’s free hand, and it takes long enough for her to reply that Rosie steps forward to do the introducing for the both of them.

“Her name’s Roxy Lalonde. I’m her sister, Rose. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr...Egbert, you said?”

“Oh, oh, that explains _everything_ ,” Roxy says, excited enough to overcome her giggles long enough to speak. “Egbert men are a _very_ good stock.”

Egbert men…? His mirth fades a little but he keeps gamely on because he’s not about to be rude to these ladies if they know his father.

“Ah, so you’ve met one of us before?” he asks, just a little dubious. He can’t really think of anything about his father that might make a woman _this_ cheerful about him. He’s fairly sure his father barely notices women even exist anymore.

“Oh, yes,” Roxy sighs, and while she doesn’t seem to notice anything’s changed, next to her Rose has her head just ever-so-faintly tilted and she’s watching him with interest. “Starcrossed from the start, I think. It was only a little date, and it ended...well, it could have ended better, but he still swept me off my feet.”

One date, swept off her feet… Joe has no idea what to think about this. He can’t imagine his heart broken, time locked father doing anything like that and he knows Egbert isn’t a hugely well known surname, but…

“I, uh. I don’t suppose his first name was Jeffrey?” he tries, wanting to make sure his head isn’t getting away from him.

“Jeffrey?” That actually seems to bring Roxy pause, but she only seems to consider the question for a few seconds, before nodding. “It might have been! He introduced himself as Jeff, though. He didn’t seem much like a Jeffrey, too stuffy.”

“If I may,” Rose interrupts abruptly, “I think there’s been a _sort_ of crossing of stars here. You don’t look like you quite believe what you’re hearing, Mr. Egbert. Are you from around here? Roxy’s lost love lives quite a ways from here.”

_Oh, thank god_. There’s plenty of things Joe could deal with. This is not one of them.

“I don’t, but my father does,” he admits with an embarrassed smile. “I do have a… well, an uncle living in Washington, though. His name is Jeff.”

Wouldn’t that be a small world.

“That’s him!” Roxy exclaims, her playful smile back in place as she nearly swoons in place, and Joe kind of wants to do the same suddenly. Looks like it’s a small world after all. “Why must Washington be so far away? Ah, but at least there’s some eye candy to be had here. I didn’t know Jeff had a nephew.”

“Or a brother, besides Jedd.” Rose adds, and Roxy hums in absent agreement. “I don’t suppose you’d mind if I asked what your father’s name was, Joe?”

“Ah, my father’s name is Jeffrey,” Joe admits, shrugging his shoulders a bit. “That’s why I was a little confused since he’s not… He’s not really what I’d call _suave_. Uh, and Jeff’s not exactly my uncle really. I think we might actually be cousins, but the connection is a little confusing.”

Confusing is an absolute understatement. He wishes he could get his head around how all this works but all he’s been able to figure out is that it has something to do with whatever John was up to and there is no way Joe is going to ask about _that_.

These women know Jeff and Jedd, though. How weird that he’s met them in the middle of the city. That’s luck like the kind Joe doesn’t like trusting because it tends to backfire. He’s got no idea how this could but he’s been wrong in the past.

“Jeffrey and Joe,” Rose repeats, but her voice is soft and distant and she’s obviously stopped paying attention to him to go digging about in her own head. Roxy picks up the conversation well enough on her own, though, no matter that one of her conversational partners is uneasy and the other has checked out.

“Uncles, cousins, it’s all the same genetics, y’know? However you’re related, it’s obviously just good all the way down to the DNA strands. I can’t believe he never told me he has family out here, though! That gentlemanly rogues is trying to keep me all to himself.”

“Oh, uh, he’s not particularly close to my father,” Joe says quickly. In actuality, he’s pretty sure Jeff has _no_ idea that Joe’s father is still alive because Joe certainly hasn’t told him. “And I live in Boston so… But you still talk to Jeff? Even if there’s only been one date? That’s romantic.”

She seems like the kind to spin tales if he leads her just right and then she can forget all about his father, which is honestly better for everyone involved. And she falls right for it in another flurry of sly giggles. She waves her hand at Joe, as if to dismiss his words, but her smile is a touch too dreamy to read as anything but completely and utterly enamored. “Well, it’s mostly business, though our phone calls do sometimes go on. Not always, of course, because there’s just _so much_ to take care of -”

“-You live in _Boston_.” Rose interrupts, _again_ , but Roxy doesn’t seem offended - she just turns to face her sister, startled, and then her expression does something funny when she registers the words. “You’re the young man taking care of the three girls that showed up there.”

_What_. Joe abruptly straightens, tension clenching in his shoulders. He’s not sure why he’s even surprised. If these women know Jeff, why wouldn’t they have something to do with the troll girls? He doesn’t know how he didn’t make the connection before and feels his belly clench up with worry.

“Yes,” he admits, his jaw tightening. “They’ve been with Jade and me a couple weeks now. I hear they showed up all over the place but I’ve only seen the three.”

“Four of them turned up with our daughters,” Rose confirms, but her smile is still a little queer and her stare a little intense. “I wasn’t quite expecting th-” This time it’s _Roxy_ who interrupts Rose, stepped forward a little to ask the question she’s apparently been brimming with.

“How are they adjusting? I know it must be difficult for them, and I feel just terrible about it.”

“Oh, uh… They seem to be handling things all right,” Joe says, resisting the urge to step _back_ from the intensity in both of them “They’re getting a little cabin fever, though. They’re… a little odd. A little too odd to go outside much.”

He feels pretty terrible about the situation himself, but he’s got no idea how to fix it.

“So you’ve got a full house right now, too?” he muses, mostly to himself. Just how many of these people _are_ there? And were all of them as strange as his group…?

“Oh, I think it’s nice to have a full house, for once. But my journal is almost ready for peer review,” Roxy said, earnestly, like she was confessing something. “It wasn’t meant to take so long to put together, but it takes a lot of effort to make something like that airtight and believable. After it’s out, and after I get Damara to do a few interviews, it should be much easier for people to accept that they’re just human children with a strange medical condition.”

Weird. They way she says it, it’s like she doesn’t think they’re human. That’s absurd though so Joe’s sure he’s just reading too much into it. He tries not to think about just how strange and different the trolls really are.

“That’s… nice,” he manages because he doesn’t quite know what she means by a journal but it sounds like it’s going to help the trolls so he decides he’s for it. “It would make them pretty happy to be able to leave the apartment here and there, so thank you for your work.”

“Oh, it’s the least I could do. My Rosie is so attached to that Kanaya girl of hers, I’d love for them to be able to go out on real dates together.” Roxy dismisses, though she does offer him a sweet smile for his fumbling words.

And… Rose is dating a troll girl? Joe blinks a little at that but accepts it easily enough. That’s not honestly the weirdest thing he’s heard of and he hopes the best for them. She didn’t look like the type but he’s learned that most of them don’t. The surprising part is just how easy everyone talks about it, not that it exists at all.

“It’s actually fortunate that we met you here,” Rose says, her own expression having finally smoothed out back into faint amusement. “I’ve been trying to get your contact information out of Dave for what feels like ages, now. I don’t know how else he expects us to be able to send you birth certificates and social security cards for them.”

“You know Dave?” he can’t stop from coming out of his mouth and then he feels kind of stupid because of course she knows Dave if she knows about the troll kids.

Rose actually laughs at him, but it’s a short noise, and not unkind. “Oh, Mr. Egbert. I’ve known Dave since we were teenagers. I wouldn’t hesitate to assert that I know him better than anyone else, actually. He might as well be my brother.”

“...Oh.” Well, that’s something to think about. There are more important things right now, though. “I-uh. I guess I should give you me and Jade’s numbers.”

He drags out the small notepad and pen he keeps in his back pocket, flipping through several pages of notes he’s jotted down here and there for things to look up, watch, or read. He may have come to the future three years ago but he’s still pretty behind on a lot of things. When he gets to a clean sheet, he starts noting down the numbers and on second thought the address as well, neatly as he can. For good measure, he adds their pesterchum handles as well.

“The certificates will be useful. Porrim was saying something about it the other day, that she needed one,” he says absently as he rips off the sheet for them and stuffs the notepad back in his pocket again.

It’s Roxy who takes the note from him, and she glances over it with curious eyes before taking her phone out and punching the information in. She passes it to Rose when she’s done, but Rose only folds the paper up and slips it into one of her many bags.

“You need a birth certificate or social security card for a lot of things, these days,” Roxy sighed, “It’s just unfortunate that we can’t get them real IDs yet, but until then, these should help a little.”

“Yes, right.” Now Joe’s wondering what kind of hoops Dave had to jump through to get him and Jade their IDs three years ago. Presumably a lot of them.

Thinking about the IDs and the contact information doesn’t keep him from thinking about Rose’s claim to practically be Dave’s sister. It sounds a bit like how he is with Jade but he can’t even imagine living so far away from her as Rose apparently does from Dave. It makes him kind of _really_ sad and he realizes that it would be very easy for him to just be unrelentingly sad if he doesn’t nip that in the bud right now.

“Well,” he says finally, struggling for something to distract himself with. “Lucky that we ran into each other.”

“It so is,” Roxy agreed, “And not just because you’re handsome.”

That one surprises a smile out of him even if he is still kind of off base here.

“Mm. I’m especially glad to meet you. I thought I’d never meet the young man who took up so much of Dave’s attention. The stories I could tell you...”

Wait. Joe is kind of afraid he might have whiplash at how quickly he jerks his head around to stare at Rose instead. “Dave’s-”

“It’s just too bad,” Roxy continues, after the two women have exchanged a glance with one another that Joe cannot decipher. “We’re so busy that we should be going soon. There’s so much to be done before the move...”

“If only we had a helper to make things go a little more quickly.” Rose agreed, and then both turned to look at Joe.

He stares back at them feeling just a little penned in and he isn’t even sure why. They’re moving? He wonders where. Maybe to Jeff’s part of the woods but… He is abruptly aware that these two women probably don’t have any big, strong guys to help them, or they wouldn’t be worrying about it. He cannot abide by that.

“I could probably come up and help,” he offers, barely thinking about it. He can probably get two days off in the middle of a week without too much trouble, as long as he works an extra day the next week to make up for it… And…

If Rose knows Dave… Maybe he could learn more about him. He ends up adding, “I could probably bring Jade and the girls, too. Get it done faster.”

“Oh, we wouldn’t want to take advantage,” Roxy says, looking rather demure after exchanging another few glances with her sister. He is definitely helping them now because a lady who says that isn’t going to ask any of her possible male friends, either! The fact that he had to _offer_ speaks volumes about a need that isn’t going to be met otherwise.

“We _could_ use all the help we can get, though,” Rose reminds her, and Roxy’s smile comes back quickly.

“True. We need help like the most helpless of helpless creatures. Baby sloths, maybe. We would definitely reimburse you, of course! Lalonde’s are many things, but we’re not cheats. Travel expenses and labor - it’s a small price to pay to not have to deal with those _brutes_ called professional movers.”

“Very brutish fellows.” Rose adds, straight-faced.

He is _definitely_ not leaving them to the trial of dealing with professional movers (nor did he even know that existed but they seem to have had a bad experience with them before and he can _not_ let that lie.) Besides, if they’re willing to handle transport up, well… That’s one worry off that makes it easier to decide this. He’s pretty sure Jade will agree and surely the troll girls will like being able to meet up and see their other friends.

“You don’t worry about a thing,” he assures them. “We’ll handle the pack up for you.”

“That’s wonderful. You’re very kind, Joe.” Rose’s smile is definitely self-satisfied, but it’s Roxy that almost immediately takes out her phone again, fiddling with it - Joe’s phone vibrates and gives a little message chime.

“There, now you have my address _and_ my number.” She winks at him. “Don’t abuse it, cutie. Text me to let me know when you can get time off, and we’ll get it all set up, nice and neat.”

When he checks it, she’s sent him a smiley face with the address. He saves the number in his contacts with only a little trouble and leaves the text message so he’ll have it for reference later.

“Yes, ma’am,” he agrees easily, already figuring up when would be the best time for his boss.

It ends up that Joe hangs around with the strange dames the rest of the afternoon, mostly carrying things. They don’t talk about much of importance because they don’t bring it up and he’s too polite to delve in too much on a first meeting. It’s just not right. He does learn about their kids though and apparently both Rose and Roxy named their daughters after each other and it’s Roxy’s daughter Rose that’s dating the troll girl. It’s weird but Joe supposes he’s heard weirder (and Dave named one of his own kids after himself, so he guesses this isn’t so bad in retrospect.) He’s kind of excited to meet the girls, in the end. The other trolls, too.

Joe’s pretty tired by the time he says goodbye to them and stops off at the motel to sleep. The next morning, he’s on a plane before six and back in Boston a while later. It feels good to get there, away from the unfamiliar hustle and bustle of New York. Not that Boston isn’t also fast paced, but it feels so much different. It feels like home. Joe’s greeted with warm voices and Jade’s hug and all feels right with the world. At least mostly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are apparently in production mode.


	9. Chapter 9

**\-- timaeusTestified [TT] pestered apocalypseArisen [AA] at 8:71 pm --**

> TT: Yo.  
>  AA: hello!  
>  AA: this is an interesting development  
>  AA: you are my fellow time players alternate guardian  
>  TT: That’s what the stars tell us.  
>  AA: which stars?  
>  TT: While that’s a good question, you’ll have to ask them yourself sometime. I actually had something of a request.  
>  AA: 0u0  
>  AA: a prince making a request  
>  AA: thats so intriguing!  
>  AA: as a maid i suppose its important to assist you in any way i can prince  
>  TT: You’re living in Boston, right now?  
>  AA: yes with porrim and meenah  
>  AA: and joe and jade as well  
>  TT: Right. Presuming he has one, I’d like Joe’s handle.  
>  AA: 0u0 0u0  
>  AA: i believe dave would make an innuendo here  
>  TT: Thanks, but I can laugh at my own homosexuality some other time. Can you help me or not?  
>  AA: haha yes  
>  AA: joes very friendly  
>  AA: eagerBibliophagist  
>  TT: That simple, huh? I guess nobody’s given you the stranger danger talk, yet.  
>  AA: oh jade has  
>  AA: but youre not a stranger and even if you were it wouldnt matter  
>  AA: new experiences are fun  
>  TT: Right. Well, it’s been surreal. Thanks for the help.  
>  AA: sure!  
>  AA: bye

**\-- apocalypseArisen [AA] has ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 8:79pm -- **

**\-- timaeusTestified [TT] pestered eagerBibliophagist [EB] at 9:08pm -- **

> TT: Not to be blunt, but frankly, do you even know anything about the Trolls?  
>  TT: Or are you just some random Joe Blow so gobsmacked by chicks with horns that you didn’t know how to turn them away?  
>  TT: I get it, dude. I’ve seen plenty of anime like that. You can be honest with me.  
>  EB: at first, i thought you might have gotten the wrong person but i gather by context clues that you do seem to know something of what is going on.  
>  EB: i still dont know who you are but you seem to talk a little like dave.  
>  EB: do you know dave?  
>  TT: It seems that you’ve asked me if I know Dave, which is an ironic way to throw my questions back at me, but unfortunately for you, I don’t know any Daves, real or fictional.  
>  TT: Let’s just say that I got your handle from a mutual friend and I had some concerns.  
>  EB: as long as this isn’t the bearcat from the other night that wouldn’t take no for an answer.  
>  EB: if it is, i should probably let you know that this counts as stalking.  
>  TT: Do you get a lot of unwanted advances from hybrid bear cats? I hadn’t thought ectobiology had ascended to quite such fucked levels, yet.  
>  TT: Either way, I can pretty candidly admit that I’m not the genetic anomaly you’re looking for. Just a guy, with concerns, like I said before.  
>  EB: you’re sounding a little cracked there, pal.  
>  EB: are you some kind of spook or something? i swear i had nothing to do with that stink bomb, honest.  
>  TT: Either you actually think that you’re being contacted by a ghost, or you’re using some hella outdated slang. It’s not the most ludicrous quirk I’ve ever had to feast my eyes on, but it cuts it pretty close.  
>  TT: I don’t care about stink bombs, dude. I just wanna make sure you’re not fucking up. It’s easy to do.  
>  EB: don’t get so snarky, baby grand. it was just a gas.  
>  EB: i am an open book. what can i do to assuage your fears, mysterious stranger?  
>  TT: Right. I was obviously ill-prepared for this conversation. To expend a modicum of fairness to myself, I hadn’t expected to need a translator.  
>  TT: I guess all we can do is forge onwards, overcoming the great obstacle of our language barrier. It’s okay. Our goal is just and our hearts are pure; failure was never an option.  
>  TT: The trolls, though. You dodged my first question pretty deftly, so I guess I’ll just repeat it:  
>  TT: What do you actually know about them?  
>  EB: the trolls as mythological creatures or the trolls as in the horned dames in my livingroom?  
>  TT: Wow. I am floored by this machiavellian wit. You have outmaneuvered me with your subtle wordplay, foul fiend.  
>  TT: I’m gonna take the second option for ten points, Trebek.  
>  EB: well, i’d hate to run afoul with the birds currently occupying my place because getting called to the carpet is not an experience i’d like to tempt.  
>  EB: so i will have to decline your most generous offer, mr. stranger on the phone.  
>  EB: i have been warned about stranger danger by the television.  
>  TT: Literally, what the fuck.  
>  TT: I haven’t felt this personally attacked by text-based conversation since I was thirteen.  
>  TT: I just came out here to have a good time, man.  
>  TT: Look, I’m not looking for the down and dirty details. I’m not that kind of internet voyeur, and I’d hate to have whoever minds you to have to revoke your internet privileges.  
>  TT: I have a vested interest in the good health of the ladies now residing in your abode. I have to make sure their fates aren’t resting in the ham-fisted hands of some dude that gets off on xenobiology he doesn’t even understand. I think that’s reasonable.   
>  EB: oh, so you’re one of their friends? you should have just told me that! i had my dukes up and everything.  
>  TT: Kindly keep your dukes in their instructed area, Daisy.  
>  TT: Friends is a strong word, but not entirely inaccurate. Either way, no complaints about your care have graced my tenderly watchful eyes.  
>  EB: they haven’t been bellyaching, if that’s what you’re asking.  
>  TT: But no news isn’t always good news, and I figured it was worth investigating to be sure. They’re as out of place here as they look, so do me a favor and keep an eye out for them.  
>  EB: well, meenah would like more outside time but it’s not halloween yet and there’s no weird conventions going on so she’s a little stuck.  
>  EB: aradia and porrim haven’t complained to me but if they’ve mentioned something, please let me know.  
>  EB: those dames are strung tighter than fort knox sometimes.   
>  TT: Let someone know what’s up if they start acting out of character.  
>  EB: i tend to keep dave abreast of the situation but i will make sure to send a line your way, too.  
>  EB: anything else or were you just after an earful?  
>  TT: I sincerely love having my ears full of whatever the hell this was supposed to be. In all and rare honesty, this was pretty much all I wanted.  
>  TT: But now you’ve piqued my curiosity. That’s the second time you’ve mentioned Dave. Do you know him pretty well?  
>  EB: i wouldn’t say we’re bosom buddies but i think we’re friends.  
>  EB: he’s aces but   
>  EB: well, it’s kind of hard to figure when  
>  EB: i mean  
>  EB: he’s my friend so i talk to him.  
>  TT: How smooth were thee? Let me count the ways: Smooth to the depth and breadth and height of a baby’s ass.   
>  TT: Smoother than butter and all butter by-products creamed together by the tenderest of egg-beaters and mixers.  
>  TT: You’re definitely a friend of Dave’s.  
>  EB: oh eat your heart out, you heel.  
>  EB: i don’t know him as well as i’d like. he’s a slippery sort.  
>  EB: i don’t mean he’s a bad guy! he just talks the queerest ways about bunk all with as many words as possible and it doesn’t always make a lick of sense but most times i figure out what he might sort of be saying.  
>  EB: or at least if it’s a good thing or not.  
>  TT: That is honestly the most ironic thing that’s ever been said to me.  
>  TT: We’re awkwardly similar in that neither of us knows a Dave as well as we’d like, I guess. You won’t find any helpful advice here, as much as it might unite us.  
>  EB: can you time travel, too?  
>  EB: aradia can and she said there were others and if you know dave  
>  EB: well.  
>  TT: No, I can’t time travel. That’s a purely Dave thing. On that note, where’d you even meet him?  
>  EB: he kept sniffing his way on my turf.  
>  EB: and then we kind of met up again just before the trolls showed up.  
>  EB: well, dave called me anyway.   
>  EB: it’s been about three years since i actually saw him.  
>  TT: Okay, so, that’s cool and all, but  
>  TT: Three years? He was, what, thirteen? Either you are way under qualified for this job, or I have been severely underestimating the level of complaint that can be heard whispered under the breath of every Time Player I know.  
>  EB: thirteen? oh! no, not that little scamp dave!  
>  EB: his dad!!  
>  TT: Wait.  
>  TT: Excuse me?  
>  TT: Dave can’t time travel.  
>  TT: How would Dave be able to time travel?  
>  TT: That doesn’t even make sense.  
>  TT: And Dave isn’t Dave’s dad.  
>  EB: i am not sure how you could not know that dave can time travel.  
>  EB: but more importantly, do not try to tell me dave isn’t dave jr.’s dad. they look completely the same. there are no genes that could align to make a more perfect copy of dave.  
>  TT: How is that more important than the fact that Dave can time travel?  
>  EB: i’m not so punch-drunk that it’ll work.  
>  TT: Look, it’s complicated, but if anything, Dave-in-the-miniature is Dirk’s kid.  
>  TT: That is the most fucked up thing I’ve ever typed.  
>  EB: i understand that dave jr. is a bit of a momma’s boy but that’s no reason to deny dave his due parental status.  
>  EB: i will fight you, sir.  
>  TT: Oh my god.  
>  TT: What the hell have you been drinking?  
>  TT: This isn’t a matter of honor, you giant tool, it’s just facts. Dave is Dirk’s kid. So’s Dove. Dirk and Hal are Dave’s, and please note that is really fucking simplifying things.  
>  EB: i do not claim to understand the full dynamics of dave’s flock but he has claimed them all and i will take his word over a stranger’s.  
>  TT: You know what? I’m going to let Dave deal with that clusterfuck, since it’s definitely of his own making.  
>  TT: You keep on thinking whatever you want to think about his ‘flock’.  
>  TT: But, seriously, it makes sense that short Dave can time travel. I know where that comes from.  
>  TT: Dave doesn’t time travel. There has literally never been any evidence of that.  
>  EB: maybe dave just never told you he could time travel but i have absolute proof he can.  
>  TT: What proof could you possibly have of time travel? Isn’t that kind of against the nature of time travel itself?  
>  EB: i’m alive.  
>  TT: Did Dave give birth to you as well? I’m not sure how else you’re life could be complicit to him and time travel.  
>  EB: i was born in the year of our lord 1900.  
>  TT: Don’t even fuck with me, right now. What, are you 113?  
>  EB: chronologically. about twenty going by my own reckoning but i have to admit, there’s probably a few months difference there.  
>  TT: So what you’re telling me is that Dave time-traveled to 19-way-too-fucking-early, and then kidnapped some random dude to 2013?   
>  EB: well, i expect he knew that jade and me were in a tussle and about to be bumped off. also it was 2000 and ive been here for three years.  
>  TT: He saved you from certain death, you mean. That’s  
>  TT: It sounds like Dave, I admit.  
>  TT: Still, why’d he even know that? Why did he care? I expect you’re leaving a few things out.  
>  EB: i don’t honestly know why he took such interest in us but i saw him a couple times.  
>  EB: then one day he showed up and took us to the future. he didn’t really stick around to explain anything and i’ve been kind of afraid to ask.  
>  TT: Failing to explain absolutely anything also sounds like a Dave thing to do.  
>  EB: he’s probably busy. he seems like a busy fella.   
>  TT: Just some friendly advice? Ask him. Daves don’t put effort into anything they don’t think is worth it.  
>  TT: He’s as busy as any other guy, but he always has his phone close by. It’s not all that taxing to have a conversation.  
>  EB: i guess i’m kind of afraid to know the answer, too.  
>  EB: but i’ll take you advice, mr. stranger.   
>  EB: maybe you take some advice from me, though?   
>  EB: a lot of things may have changed in the future, but randomly bothering people over the phone without introducing yourself is a little rude, so next time you decide to do it, you might want to at least give the other fool your name.  
>  EB: might make things a little less dicey.  
>  EB: also a little less creepy.  
>  EB: don’t nickle and dime with your private information among friends, kiddo.  
>  TT: Rude and creepy is a pretty accurate description of my personality. I’m glad I was able to convey that through this rad orange text.  
>  EB: you don’t happen to be that gamzee kid, do you? i’ve been told he’s both rude and creepy.  
>  TT: I do not look nearly as good in grease paint as our juggalo in residence.  
>  TT: Call me DiStri. It might be a little obvious at this point, but whatever.  
>  TT: Seriously, though, about Dave? I think the fact that he saved you at all is answer enough. He could have left you there. It would have been easier, if I understand my time mechanics correctly.  
>  EB: i’m pretty sure he was saving jade and i was just collateral.  
>  EB: she’s the smart one who’s going places. I think maybe she’s just really important to the future or something. maybe she discovers planets and founds a colony on mars. i hear that’s going to be a thing someday.   
>  TT: Something tells me this ‘Jade’ would hit you herself for saying that. Not that it’s my business. You and I could bottle and sell premium self-deprecation. It’d be a fucking hit. Maybe that’s the reason he brought you to the future, all important and shit.  
>  TT: Space, chemicals, it’s all the same thing. I mean, if Picasso were responsible for the Universe, it’d be exactly the same thing.  
>  EB: i suppose so.  
>  EB: well, no matter what reason he brought me here, i am alive and am grateful for that.  
>  TT: Yeah, I’d be grateful too.  
>  EB: did you have any other questions for me? Or did you just intend to be a rapscallion for another half hour?  
>  TT: As much as I love being a rapscallion - which I assure you is not a pokemon that I have ever heard of, before just now - I’m out.  
>  TT: It was certainly something to talk to you.  
>  EB: you’re welcome to again, little help as I might be to you.  
>  EB: this wasn’t entirely terrible for either of us, i think.  
>  EB: and it’s not like this is the ritz and you need some kind of reservation.  
>  TT: Don’t be so down on yourself. You are obviously the ritziest of hotels. Believe in the dream. Believe in the me that believes in you.  
>  TT: You’re right, this could have been worse. Maybe we’ll talk some other time.  
>  TT: Oyasumi, Sweet Prince.  
>  EB: uh.  
>  EB: good bye, mr. stranger.

**\-- timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering eagerBibliophagist [EB] at 9:41 pm -- **

**\-- timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG] at 10:57 pm -- **

> TT: Roxy.  
>  TG: drok  
>  TG: fuck *dork  
>  TG: tfw u been sober for sweeps but ur fingers intoxicated as fuck  
>  TT: Roxy.  
>  TG: thats my name d  
>  TG: what can mama do for dirkaroo  
>  TG: im practicing my raps  
>  TG: im gonna destroy dave at laying out the beats  
>  TG: but enough about me tell me bout u  
>  **\--timaeusTestified [TT] sent tipsyGnostalgic [TG] LOG EaB01**  
>  TG: oh  
>  TG: oh shit  
>  TG: you want me to kick ur bros ass  
>  TG: i will lay him the fuck out  
>  TT: Not really.  
>  TT: Honestly, Roxy, I don’t know how I feel about it.  
>  TT: I’ve been laying here for a fucking hour, staring at the ceiling, and I haven’t the slightest clue what I’m supposed to take away from this conversation.  
>  TT: Except that I should really know better than to let my curiosity get ahead of me.  
>  TG: i am going to lay him the fuck out  
>  TG: hell be all shit whered this lalonde chick come from  
>  TG: swinging her fisticuffs out everywhere  
>  TG: i learned these fisticuffs from experts mr dave strider  
>  TG: if that is even ur real name u fraud  
>  TT: Ha.  
>  TT: I fucking miss you.  
>  TG: ur gonna make me fuckin cry omg  
>  TG: i miss u too u massive dweeb  
>  TG: we can stream some of ur dumb anime if you wanna?  
>  TT: It’s better than what I was planning to do.  
>  TG: sweet  
>  TG: ill meet ur stupid face on the site  
>  TT: Toast it.

**\-- timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG] at 11:11 pm -- **

**\-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering telurianGladiator [TG] at 11:12 pm -- **

> TG: ok  
>  TG: honestly just rude af???  
>  TG: totes judging u  
>  TG: with like the judgiest fucking lalonde stare u ever did see  
>  TG: like just fuck u  
>  TG: and thanks for fucking nothing  
>  TG: what?

**\-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering telurianGladiator [TG] at 11:13 pm -- **

**\-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \--  
\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \--  
\-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \--  
\-- twinArmageddons [TA] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \--  
\-- abaddonAvenged [AA] blocked EVERYONE -- **

**\-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering gutsyGumshoe [GG] at 11:32 pm -- **

> TG: jaaaane  
>  TG: janiiie  
>  TG: hottest crocker babe  
>  GG: Why I do declare, I do believe that is in fact the best description of myself I have ever heard.  
>  GG: Yes, Miss Lalonde, what can I do for you today?  
>  TG: its not what u can do for me ms crocker  
>  TG: its what u can do for your country  
>  TG: ur fellow man  
>  TG: the former prasidants  
>  TG: *presidance  
>  TG: *fuckin presidents fuck  
>  TG: really jane its what we can do for the world  
>  GG: Consider me properly chastised.  
>  GG: Now, what is it I can do for you?  
>  GG: And what has you in such a tizzy that you’re making more mistakes than usual?  
>  TG: ok hear me out  
>  TG: u gotta block strider  
>  TG: the dumb one  
>  TG: the dumb old one  
>  TG: fuckin  
>  TG: dirks bro  
>  GG: What on earth for?  
>  TG: he’s not fit for polit fucking company  
>  TG: *fuckit u know what i meant  
>  TG: breakin hearts  
>  TG: ok ok ok ill explain  
>  TG: *DEEP BREATHS*  
>  TG: fuckin time travel jane  
>  GG: Dirk’s brother can’t time travel.  
>  TG: ha fucki ha  
>  TG: yeah or so he wanted us to believe  
>  TG: hold up hold up  
>  TG: dirk sent me a pesterlog  
>  TG: u want?  
>  GG: Give it here.  
>  GG: I need to make my own decisions on this matter.   
>  TG: get ur sleuth on ms crocker  
>  **\--tipsyGnostalgic [TG] sent gutsyGumshoe [GG] LOG EaB01**  
>  GG: That rat bastard.  
>  GG: Consider me on your side.   
>  TG: dang nabbity  
>  GG: We need to continue spreading the word.   
>  TG: i already got rosie on board  
>  TG: can i trust the honorable detective jane to tackle her household?  
>  GG: Already made the announcement. I have it on good authority that steps are now being taken.   
>  TG: fuckin yes well show that strider we cant be pushed around like this  
>  GG: How is Dirk handling it?  
>  TG: our fuckin emotions all atatter n shit  
>  TG: i mean hes  
>  TG: dirk  
>  TG: i got him watchin the animes w me rn  
>  TG: i wish we could cuddle pile janie  
>  TG: this is even worse then when we were in the future :( :(  
>  GG: Soon, we will. I know my father has been talking to Mr. Egbert about possibly relocating to Texas.  
>  GG: Apparently, it was your mother’s idea.  
>  GG: So, I might be letting Dad know that I would be very happy with this development.   
>  TG: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
>  TG: janie OMG  
>  TG: that is so fuckin sick  
>  TG: i am legit so excited i could pee my pants  
>  TG: we are gonna slumber party SO HARD  
>  TG: and talk about so many boys  
>  TG: and silently judge ppl  
>  TG: omg i saw this movie about that  
>  TG: ill tell you about it later  
>  TG: we can stream it when dirk feels better  
>  GG: Sounds like a plan.   
>  GG: For now, I have a clown to force nutrition into.  
>  GG: I will talk to you later. Keep me informed on the Dirk front.  
>  TG: aye aye capn crocker  
>  TG: u get ur clown gurl  
>  GG: HE’S NOT MY CLOWN!  
>  TG: ok ok sure hes not   
>  TG: and these are totally not roses socks im wearin  
>  TG: i gotta quest to finish tho  
>  TG: smooch smooch byyyye  
>  GG: Good bye.

**\-- gutsyGumshoe [GG] ceased pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG] at 11:54 pm -- **

**\-- gutsyGumshoe [GG] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \--  
\-- terminallyCapricious [TC] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \--  
\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \--  
\-- gnarlyCasperflip [GC] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \--  
\-- totallyAwesome [TA] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \--  
\-- arachnidsGrip [AG] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \--**

**\-- gutsyGumshoe [GG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 11:54 pm -- **

> GG: Just to let you know, we’re all mass blocking Dirk’s older brother.  
>  EB: uh why?  
>  GG: You don’t need to know, just do it.  
>  EB: i think i have a right to know why i’m randomly blocking one of the adults in our lives, jane.  
>  GG: Just trust that I’m looking out for your future welfare, little brother.  
>  EB: oh my god, not the little brother bullshit again!  
>  EB: we were literally born at the SAME TIME.  
>  GG: I know which of us acts more like an older sibling.  
>  EB: you know what? just for that, i’m not doing it.  
>  GG: John.  
>  EB: nope.  
>  EB: that ship has sailed!  
>  GG: John. Do the thing or I won’t let you have any of the fresh chocolate chip cookies on the cooling rack.  
>  EB: THAT SURE IS AN ATTRACTIVE INCENTIVE!   
>  EB: joke’s on you, i don’t even like sweets!  
>  GG: I don’t understand how we’re even related.  
>  EB: :B  
>  GG: Just block him, John.  
>  EB: make me.  
>  GG: I don’t think you want to go down that road, John.  
>  EB: i don’t think you want to make me go down that road, jane.  
>  GG: It’s for Dirk.  
>  EB: okay, and i care why?  
>  EB: just asking for science!  
>  GG: How is that for science?!  
>  EB: how is any of this my business?  
>  GG: Uuuuuggggghhhhhhh.  
>  EB: what if you did my chores this month?  
>  GG: I am not doing your chores, John.  
>  EB: then i am not blocking this dude.  
>  GG: How  
>  GG: I  
>  GG: ONE DAY OF CHORES.  
>  EB: two weeks  
>  GG: One week.  
>  EB: sold.  
>  EB: also i blocked him like five minutes ago.

**\-- gutsyGumshoe [GG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 12:05 am -- **

> EB: psyche 

**\-- ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering gutsyGumshoe [GG] at 12:05 am -- **

**\-- gutsyGumshoe [GG] blocked ectoBiologist [EB] \--  
\-- ectoBiologist [EB] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] -- **

**\-- telurianGladiator [TGα] began pestering turntechGodhead [TGβ] at 12:07 am -- **

> TGα: why is every teenager blocking me  
>  TGβ: wait are we  
>  TGβ: shit

**\-- turntechGodhead [TGβ] ceased pestering telurianGladiator [TGα] at 12:08 am -- **

**\-- turntechGodhead [TGβ] blocked telurianGladiator [TGα] \--  
\-- adiosToreador  [AT] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \--  
\-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \-- **

**\-- telurianGladiator [TG] began pestering talismanGallant [TG] at 12:08 am -- **

> TG: what the hell is going on  
>  TG: nope

**\-- talismanGallant [TG] ceased pestering telurianGladiator [TG] at 12:08 am -- **

**\-- talismanGallant [TG] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \--  
\-- alightedRook [AR] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \-- **

**\-- telurianGladiator [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 12:09 am -- **

> TG: ok seriously kid  
>  TG: cut me some slack  
>  TG: what the hell is happening right now  
>  TT: What?  
>  TG: all these teens are blocking me  
>  TG: even the ones that are vaguely me  
>  TG: i just want to know whats happening  
>  TT: Girl, I can’t even, right now.

**\-- timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering telurianGladiator [TG] at 12:09 am-- **

**\-- timaeusTestified [TT] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \-- **

**\-- timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG] at 12:10 am -- **

> TT: Roxy, what did you do.  
>  TG: wink wonk  
>  TG: reprecushions dink  
>  TG: reprecushions  
>  TT: Slay.

**\-- timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering tipsyGnostalgic [TG] at 12:11 am -- **

**\--turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 12:11 am-- **

> TG: yo fun new game  
>  TG: were blocking old dave  
>  GG: what???  
>  TG: just do the thing harley  
>  GG: well okay. I guess i will.  
>  GG: but this is really weird, dave!  
>  TG: trust me  
>  TG: i dont know why either just do it anyway  
>  GG: done and done  
>  TG: perf  
>  TG: make your teen grandpa do it too  
>  GG: i don’t think that’s even important because he never actually signs on  
>  TG: good point  
>  TG: okay more people to spread the word to  
>  TG: bye jade  
>  GG: :/

**\--turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 12:13 am-- **

**\-- gardenGnostic [GG] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \--  
\-- Hellmurder Island blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \-- **

**\-- cuttlefishCuller [CC] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 12:13 am-- **

> CC: I think somefin is wrong with our internet.  
>  GG: nope, just a stupid human thing from the mainland!!  
>  CC: Good to know. T)(anks!

**\-- cuttlefishCuller [CC] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 12:14 am-- **

**\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began pestering capsizedCorona [CC] at 12:15 am-- **

> CG: A BUNCH OF ASSHOLES ARE ACTING STUPID SO I’M HERE TO INFECT YOU WITH IT, TOO.  
>  CC: if you reelly gotta  
>  CC: sounds gross  
>  CG: IT IS TRULY AN UNDERTAKING OF THE UTMOST GROSSNESS.  
>  CG: BLOCK THE HUMAN ADULT DAVE STRIDER. I’M NOT ACTUALLY SURE WHY WE’RE DOING IT BUT THE JANE HUMAN WAS VERY PERSUASIVE.   
>  CC: that crocker beach  
>  CC: ugh now its dolphinately deep ocean levels of disgustfin  
>  CC: fin but only bcuz youre doin it first  
>  CC: an empress gotta stand behind her threshecutioner if she stands behind anenome one  
>  CG: I THINK THIS IS THE PART WHERE I AM EMBARRASSINGLY GRACIOUS FOR YOUR ATTENTIONS OR SOMETHING.   
>  CG: ANYWAY, JUST PASSING ON THE MESSAGE. THE EGBERT LUSUS IS DOING THAT THING WHERE HE STARES AT US LIKE HE WANTS TO TELL US TO DO SOMETHING BUT WON’T BECAUSE OF SOME WEIRD HUMAN RITUAL POLITENESS.  
>  CG: I’M PRETTY FUCKING SURE HE WANTS US TO GO TO COON.   
>  CC: whale guess you betta get on that  
>  CC: tanks for letting minnow  
>  CC: later nubz  
> 

**\-- capsizedCorona [CC] ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] at 12:16 am-- **

**\-- capsizedCorona [CC] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \--  
\-- gregariousAigis [GA] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \--  
\-- apocalypseArisen [AA] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \-- **

**\--apocalypseArisen [AA] began pestering eagerBibliophagist [EB] at 12:17 am-- **

> AA: did you have a nice conversation with dirk?  
>  EB: what? i don’t think i’ve spoken with him yet. why?  
>  AA: i gave him your handle because he was curious  
>  AA: he seemed very insistent!  
>  EB: wait.  
>  EB: what is his handle?  
>  AA: timaeusTestified  
>  EB:   
>  EB: suddenly that conversation makes even less sense than before.  
>  AA: what  
>  EB: nothing. shouldn’t you be in bed?  
>  AA: yes 0u0  
>  EB: young lady.  
>  AA: oh i am so told  
>  AA: okay you win  
>  AA: im off to bed  
>  EB: that’s good.  
>  AA: also were all blocking the old dave  
>  EB: what?!

**\--apocalypseArisen [AA] ceased pestering eagerBibliophagist [EB] at 12:21 am-- **

> EB: aradia!!  
>  EB: oh fine, i’ll just ask dirk.

**\--eagerBibliophagist [EB] ceased pestering apocalypseArisen [AA] at 12:22 am-- **

**\--eagerBibliophagist [EB] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 12:22 am-- **

> EB: distri, why are all of your friends blocking dave?  
>  TT: Anarchy in the streets. I plead the fifth. I am but an innocent bystander in this, the End of Ages.  
>  EB: is it something i said?  
>  EB: because anything i said should reflect badly on me, not dave.  
>  EB: did i say something?   
>  TT: This is difficult to explain.  
>  TT: To be honest, I don’t know who you are, how much you know, or how much Dave’s told you.  
>  TT: Also, this still isn’t my fault.  
>  EB: okay, i believe you.   
>  EB: thank you for your honesty.  
>  EB: also, hello and i’m sorry i was so untowards earlier today.  
>  EB: i admit i am not always the kindest to strangers.   
>  TT: It’s not exactly like I’m a great host, either. Anyway, I’m a Strider. Your candid attitude was almost refreshing.  
>  TT: This might be a little bit my fault. But mostly Roxy’s fault.  
>  TT: I’m not really very sorry.  
>  EB: i have not actually had the pleasure of meeting roxy, just her mother.  
>  EB: but i’m sure she had her reasons.  
>  EB: all right, thank you again.  
>  EB: also, it is far too late for you to be up.  
>  EB: go to bed, young man.  
>  TT: Which Mom? Your perception of our family units leaves me a bit wary.  
>  EB: her mother rose? i met her and her sister who is also named roxy. boy do future families like repeating names.   
>  TT: And you’re not my real mom, you can’t boss me around.  
>  EB: i suppose i can’t boss you around.  
>  EB: i’ll just have to tell on you.  
>  TT: You fucking snitch.  
>  TT: I’m actually speechless, right now. Betrayed.  
>  TT: On top of that, I can’t believe you completely basically get Roxy’s family but think that our mom is Dirk, Sr.  
>  EB: as dave is the one who told me about miss dirk, i am assuming this information to be accurate.  
>  EB: or does she prefer mr.? i am not up on these hip new gender spectrums quite yet.  
>  TT: I can’t believe you’re actually claiming to take Dave at his word. Why would you do that? He’s so full of irony I doubt he even knows how to spell sincerity.  
>  TT: But you know what, fine. Dirk prefers to be referred to as Princess.  
>  EB: i will be very careful to remember that as jade says i need to be very respectful of the strange customs of this time period.  
>  EB: okay, i do need to speak to dave so please take care.  
>  TT: You do that, Pinocchio.  
>  TT: I’ll pretend I’m going to bed and not watching anime with my best friend, if you promise not to snitch on me.  
>  TT: Have fun with Dave.  
>  EB: will do. good night, eventually.

**\--eagerBibliophagist [EB] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 12:35 am-- **

**\--eagerBibliophagist [EB] began pestering telurianGladiator [TG] at 12:35 am-- **

> EB: my kids are blocking you and i don’t know why but i think it might be my fault even though dirk said it wasn’t.  
>  TG: ok theres a lot of things that need addressing in that but first  
>  TG: youre not going to end this conversation by blocking me are you  
>  TG: a man starts to get a little paranoid  
>  EB: what?! No!!  
>  EB: i won’t block you, dave.  
>  TG: ok cool  
>  TG: secondly its not just your kids  
>  TG: literally every kid i have the vaguest relation to has blocked me and i have no fucking idea why  
>  TG: why would it be your fault  
>  TG: and wait since when did you talk to dirk  
>  TG: why do i feel like i missed the most important bit of exposition in a movie  
>  EB: since a couple hours ago when he sent me a message.  
>  EB: apparently aradia gave him my pesterchum handle and he decided to talk to me only he didn’t tell me who he was and i don’t even know what i did wrong but i’m sure it was me.  
>  EB: i just got that feeling when aradia asked me a couple minutes ago how it went.  
>  EB: why would every kid block you?!  
>  EB: is this some kind of future world prank?  
>  TG: why the hell would he send you a message  
>  EB: he said he was worried about the trolls living with  
>  TG: why does he even know who you are  
>  TG: about the trolls  
>  TG: that makes a little sense i guess  
>  TG: why wouldnt he tell you who he was  
>  TG: why are children so fucking confusing  
>  TG: if its a prank its not a fun one  
>  EB: wait  
>  TG: ok ok lets maybe  
>  TG: start at the beginning  
>  TG: whatd he want to talk to you about  
>  EB: why wouldn’t he know who i am?  
>  EB: did you really not tell your kids who the guy housing their friends is?!  
>  TG: uh  
>  TG: i have a totally reasonable explanation for that but no  
>  TG: no i may have forgotten to explain that  
>  EB: damn it, dave!  
>  EB: did it not cross your mind that they might be slightly worried about some strange bimbo they’ve never met being around at least one of their friends?!  
>  EB: and a total of three trolls who literally can’t go outside right now and are completely dependant on my care?!  
>  EB: are you totally BONKERS?!  
>  EB: i just  
>  EB: THEY MUST HAVE BEEN TERRIFIED, DAVE!  
>  EB: I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU!  
>  TG: im sure its fine  
>  TG: calm down nothing to get upset about man if theyd asked id have told them you were chill  
>  EB: DID YOU JUST  
>  TG: im not bonkers im just  
>  TG: it slipped my mind  
>  TG: theres no need for raised voices joe  
>  EB: okay. i’m done talking to you right now before i say something i’ll regret.  
>  EB: go talk to dirk.  
>  TG: what no  
>  EB: now.  
>  TG: ill talk to dirk later its like one in the morning joe  
>  TG: im talking to you right now  
>  TG: i dont get why youre acting so pissed at me  
>  EB: you are not talking to me anymore because i am done talking to you right now.  
>  EB: he’s awake, trust me. talk to him now.  
>  TG: joe im not going to talk to my sixteen year old at one am in the morning  
>  TG: after hes started some kind of revolution  
>  TG: breaking waves against the cliffside of tyranny that is the pesterlog  
>  TG: hes building his army spitting all the inflammatory words  
>  TG: hes just some teen but people are listening joe  
>  TG: theyre listening as he demands  
>  TG: let his people go  
>  TG: i never realized that the common folk suffered so much  
>  TG: i was so cruel in my rule  
>  TG: but my pride is too full and i will not be felled  
>  TG: so yeah anyway im not talking to him tonight  
>  TG: thats ridiculous  
>  EB: no, you’re ridiculous.

**\-- eagerBibliophagist [EB] ceased pestering telurianGladiator [TG] at 12:47 am -- **

> TG: joe

**\-- eagerBibliophagist [EB] blocked telurianGladiator [TG] \-- **

> TG: joe you said you wouldnt  
>  TG: fuck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still in production mode. This was started as a side story and then we realized oh shit, this is part of HISMSV and changed accordingly. And then finished the last two chapters wicked fast lol. But like, none of the next chapters are done so it'll be a little while for the next one (just hopefully not like two years.)
> 
> There are going to be regrets about this entire thing later.


End file.
